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by StormySkyLeaf
Summary: "Did you ever have a moment in your life where everything was suddenly thrown in the middle of a hurricane? Where everything you knew changed in such a way that it would never be the same again? I did. My best friend, Vanessa Poirier, too." The unexpected teleportation of two girls from Quebec in the Avengers' Tower changes irremediably many lives. (Multiples pairings)
1. Prologue

**This fanfic is an idea I got with one of my best friends (She-Wolf-By-Heart) about a year (if not two) ago. She's been urging me to post it for months, and here it is.**

**Okay. So this came from a crazy idea. What would happen if us two, crazy girls from Quebec, ended up meeting the Avengers. We started writing it for fun. I did most of the writing, but my friend's parts are hers. What happened is that the 'for fun' ended up in already over 35 000 words written, and I'm far from being done.**

**Now, mark my words. I didn't change our names because they are useful to some things in the story but that doesn't mean that you can think that _everything_ is real. It's not. Some traits of our personalities are. Some things about us are real. But not _everything._ And whatever love story might pop up in the fanfic is the product of pure imagination, okay?**

**Now...**

**Disclaimer: I do not claim any ownership on the Avengers and everything that has to do with Marvel's universe. This is the pure product of imagination. The only thing that belong to me is my own character, and She-Wolf-By-Heart's character is hers.**

**Warnings: Possible graphic descriptions of violence. Lots of swearing (I'm serious, I'm _not_ being polite) so if it disturbs you, don't read.**

**If you see mistakes (not that I have a tendency to do a lot of them), kindly notice me, please. I have no beta right now. If you're interested, feel free to propose yourself.**

**Phew... Long note. Okay, on with the prologue and chapter 1!**

**- StormySkyLeaf**

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**Prologue**

Did you ever have a moment in your life where everything was suddenly thrown in the middle of a hurricane? Where everything you knew changed in such a way that it would never be the same again?

I did. My best friend, Vanessa Poirier, too.

I am Alexanne. Alexanne De Bellefeuille. From Quebec. 24 years old, going on my 25 years old. Studying in languages. Fluent in English, French, Spanish and German. Learning Italian.

Single. Living in a small but cozy apartment.

My life suddenly went amiss on the 15th of February, when my best friend and I were at my apartment. A friendly meeting, exchanging news, spending some precious time together since our studies took a lot of place. I still remember the meal. I had made steak with flavoured rice and green beans.

It was after supper that things went wrong. I was showing Nessa some things on my laptop. Pictures, documents, projects… Anyway.

It happened in three successive 'pops'.

Pop! A strange swirling blue thing appeared in my living room.

Pop! Vanessa and I were suddenly prisoners in the swirly blue thing.

Pop! We were in the middle of a large living room, the television making lots of noise behind us and six shocked faces gazing at us with obvious surprise.

And to make things even better, we knew who were in front of us.

A man with an arc reactor. A man wearing a white shirt with a red, white and blue shield. A red-headed woman with a gun in her hand. A sandy-haired man with startling pale eyes and a bow. A man whose eyes were hesitating between chocolate brown and radioactive green. And a strange tall man holding an even stranger hammer.

We were in the middle of Avengers Tower. In New York City, United States.

What. The. Fuck.

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**For your information:**

**I (StormySkyLeaf) am Alexanne.**

**She-Wolf-By-Heart is Vanessa.**


	2. Chapter 1: Meetings and Trouble

**There is some French in this chapter. Translations are at the bottom.**

**Vanessa's monologue has been written by herself (She-Wolf-By-Heart). I only corrected it a little.**

**Enjoy!**

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**Chapter 1: Meetings and Trouble**

My first reaction was maybe the worst thing I ever said in my short life.

"What in goddamn heaven? What the hell was in the meat?" I breathed, too shocked to actually think properly.

Vanessa opened and closed her mouth like a gaping fish… before settling on pinching me!

"Yeow! The heck?" I bit out, rubbing my arm. She gave me a wide-eyed look and pinched herself lightly, wincing.

Time to calm down and make my smart brain work properly. I cleared my throat and offered the staring Avengers a weak smile. "Erm… Hello?" Clint Barton only tightened his hold on his bow and Natasha Romanoff aimed for me. I swallowed. "Could you, please, put your weapons down? They're making me nervous and we're certainly not a great menace. We don't even have weapons of any kind." I bit my lip nervously. The silence was becoming oppressing. The weapons pointed at us were menacing.

Focus, De Bellefeuille. Act like a mature adult.

"How did you…" Tony Stark waved his hands around. "Just pop there?"

I gave him a sheepish smirk. "That's the thing. Something blue popped in my apartment. It popped us inside. And it popped us here." My voice was trembling. I swallowed again. The menace of the weapons was wracking my nerves. "Put those things down, for God's sake!" I cried out, the loud noise surprising them.

"Nope, it's really the Avengers, right in front of me." My best friend whispered. Oh, oh. I could feel the storm coming this way.

"That's it, I'm crazy! Fictional people just came to visit me directly from a movie! A goddamn movie!'' she said, her voice rising higher and higher as she spoke.

I face-palmed myself. Hard. The slap echoed in the room and Ness let out something between a strangled laugh and a pathetic whine.

"Oh. My. God. Did you really say that?" I asked, rubbing my forehead with two fingers. I let out a strangled chuckle and dragged a hand over my eyes. "If you're crazy, then I'm surely not better."

My brain was perfectly working, though. And I did not do drugs, so hallucinations was mostly out of the question.

"A movie?" Tony sounded so surprised. A nervous giggle escaped me. "You saw us in a movie?"

Vanessa and I exchanged a glance. "Not just one." I muttered.

"Ironman 1 and 2, Captain America, The Hulk, The Incredible Hulk, Thor… Am I missing something?" Vanessa enumerated on her fingers.

I shook my head. "The movie itself: The Avengers." Another nervous giggle escaped me. Okay. This was the strangest vivid dream I ever had. Could I wake up, now?

"Of course! I forgot the main one, The Avengers movie!" Ness exclaimed.

"You mean that all of us are fictional?" Tony said while the others finally lowered their weapons.

"So, we come from a movie, uh?" Bruce added, visibly not at ease with our affirmations.

''Yep! Or you're supposed to, but it's really confusing right now.'' I said. In fact, confusing didn't even came close to the degree of incomprehension I felt. "It's real, isn't it? You're flesh and bones, not just a product of my boundless imagination." I shook my head. "What are we doing in New York City, shit!? I have classes tomorrow!"

"Where do you come from?" Steve Rogers suddenly asked.

Was there ever a moment in your life when you suddenly had back an old crush on a character? Thing is, my crush was apparently on a real person, America's golden boy.

"Qu… Quebec…" I answered, licking my lips with a quick swipe of tongue. Steven Grant Rogers was fucking gorgeous, really. All that slightly golden smooth skin covering rock hard manly muscles. Tall, strong, proud, a natural leader. With ocean blue eyes, the kind of blue to get lost into for days. I had some focus problems. So when I was able to hold someone's gaze for a long while, I was immediately interested in this person.

I had a crush on Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America. Whom I had just met for real in the last… fifteen minutes?

Why did I have the feeling that I would end up heart-broken?

"Isn't that like in Canada?" Natasha asked and I focussed back on the conversation.

"Yes it is. We live there or lived anyway" Nessa answered with some hesitation.

"Ok, first of all, I would like to know what exactly you know about us from these... movies." Steve said, looking even more uncomfortable than Bruce.

Vanessa took a deep breath. Oh great, she was on for a long speech. I looked around the room and found a wall not too far.

"Well I know that you were that scrawny kid before the serum and a scientist or doctor of some kind chose you to experiment the serum and it worked. Then you were a circus freak, used to invite other people to join the army. After some time, you decided to really go and rescue some men that the army had decided it was not worth the fight to get them back, but you did. After that, you became Captain America and you went on missions, but lost your friend Bucky on one of them. Then you had this romance going on between with Peggy, but you never made it to this rendezvous and the dance because you had the crash with that ship in the ice ocean." Vanessa said.

"For the Hulk, well, we know that you experimented to create a serum that was supposed to be like the one they gave to Captain America, but it didn't turn right. You transformed into the Hulk and you were discovered and chased everywhere you went, even if you were being extra careful to not let your heartbeat out of control. There was this romance you had with the daughter of the military guy too." she added. I subtly moved toward the wall. "The second movie just talks about a guy who injected himself with samples of your blood and became another kind of Hulk that you defeated."

"Now, Iron Man. It began with you and Pepper Potts talking affairs, then lead to when you showed the Jericho Missile and then you were captured by guys that were enemies of yours and had a ton of your weapons in stock. They asked you to make them a Jericho Missile, but at first, you made the Arc Reactor and put it into your chest to stop living off a car battery. After that, you made the first version of the Iron Man suit and escaped from there. Then, you stopped making weapons, defeating your supposed-to-be-a-friend in the way and announced to the world that you were Iron Man." Vanessa explained. "For the second movie, you said that you refused to cooperate with the army and sold the Iron Man suit. Only Rhodey would get one later. Then, there was this man that created robotic androids for war and targeted you after you defeated him at a race in France. You finally defeated him with the help of your friend Rhodey and something your father left you. At one of the ends of either movie, you kissed Pepper and that's how you got together."

"There's Thor, who was banished on Earth without his powers nor his hammer because he had thought that fighting against the Jotuns was a good idea after they tried to steal something. That's when Loki discovered that he wasn't a true Asgardian and became so furious he made his father "fall asleep" and took over while Thor wasn't here. On Earth, Thor soon discovered he really didn't have his powers anymore when he failed to grab his hammer. With the help of Jane Foster and doctor Selvig, he learned a bit how our world works. When Loki sent a giant monster to kill him, he putted himself in front of Jane and the others, and that was when he regained his powers, defeating the monster. Then, he had to return to Asgard, but he promised Jane he would return. When he returned, Loki was waiting for him and they fought and broke the beautiful rainbow bridge that permitted them to travel trough worlds and Loki was lost in space as he let go of Thor's hand." Vanessa said. I cringed, fearing the reaction forebode by the growing tension.

"And then, there's The Avengers. By far, my favourite movie ever. It shows how Loki appeared with the help of the Tesseract and how Clint and doctor Selvig were hypnotised by Loki with some kind of magic coming from his staff. After they escaped, we saw how Black Widow was "interrogating" some bad guys, we saw how she convinced Bruce of coming, we saw how Phil Coulson and Pepper Potts convinced Tony of coming and we saw how Fury convinced Captain America of coming. After that, Loki was seen in Russia so Black Widow and Captain America were sent there. They defeated him with the help of Iron Man, but then his brother appeared and talked to him. Loki let you take him after the fight, but only because he seemed to want to be in the helicarrier in the first place. After that, the Tesseract was located right beside the helicarrier when something exploded and everybody was on the run, trying to save the ship from sinking. Loki escaped; the war began, and then ended. And Thor and Loki were sent to Asgard and you guys were off into the wild, free of any sort of missions for a while since you saved the world."

Vanessa finally finished her speech and I gave her a small tense smile from where I was leaning against the wall, playing with the first thing that had fallen under my hands. A book on something… Ah, a novel, actually. Not one I knew. I brought it a bit closer to my nose and vented myself with the pages. It still smelled new. I peered at the Avengers, who were staring at Vanessa, tense and exchanging long looks.

Nobody was talking. At all. I could hear the hum of the appliances, the slight buzzing of the electricity, the metallic sound of Thor playing with his hammer and the discreet 'frchh' sound of Clint playing with the feathered part of his arrows. If I concentrated, I could even hear the sounds of the traffic below, faint screams and gunshots, like in the movies…

"Gunshots?" I whispered aloud. Vanessa gave me a confused look. Natasha and Tony glared at me for breaking the silence. The TV had been shut. It didn't come from it. Maybe I was imagining things…

Yet, even as I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, I could still hear the noises, so faint they sounded as if they were coming from the back of my mind. Screams… Gunshots… Quite close. As if it was approaching the Tower…

Steve was frowning and Thor cocked his head. Of course, they had the most sensitive hearing. Maybe I wasn't imagining things, finally.

"Gunshots?" I repeated in a tiny voice. Nessa closed her eyes and listened and I saw her eyebrows twitching.

"Sounds like…" she whispered back.

Suddenly, the Avengers were on their feet and moving in all directions. I pressed myself closer to the wall, not knowing what to do to stay out of the way or to be helpful.

It was impressing. In less than ten minutes, they were all geared up; suits, armours, weapons and everything. Before closing his faceplate, Tony gave us a glare.

"You stay here. You don't move. Understood?"

"Yessir." was my automatic answer, tone borderline on sarcasm. How dared he order us around? It was his tower but we were not subordinates!

He frowned. "JARVIS, keep an eye on them." he ordered, before spinning on his heel and entering the elevator.

"I shall use all my eyes, sir." An electronic voice answered. It sounded as if it was coming from nowhere and I jumped quite violently, even if I managed to muffle my surprised squeak.

Then, the silence swooped down on us again.

Vanessa and I exchanged a weary look. "What can we do?" she asked, visibly restless.

I shrugged uneasily. "Wait, I guess." I bit my lip. "Wait for what? They're going to ship us back to Quebec as soon as they can. Hell, if we are to meet Fury…" A smirk appeared on my lips. He would probably hate me the second my temper would get the better of me. "If we are to meet Fury, he will send us back _illico__ presto_, with a complimentary kick in the butt."

My friend snorted and chuckled. "He would."

The gunshots were now clearly audible. Some strange explosion-like sounds too. Mjolnir maybe?

JARVIS was silent but I knew he was watching us and helping Tony at the same time. After all, wasn't he the top and the best of the interacting artificial intelligences?

With a sigh, I vented myself with the book again. I could have started reading, but strangely enough, I was not even interested. Even if the book looked good. Some thriller. I liked thrillers.

Fifteen minutes. I counted the seconds in my head. 900 seconds. Long. Boring.

Nessa and I exchanged a look and made for the window at the same time. We couldn't stay put, arms crossed, doing nothing. Curiosity was getting the better of us. We had to see what was going on.

What we saw shocked us beyond speechless.

There were three guys. With jetpacks keeping them in the air. One was making a hole in the thick windows. One was holding something that the third was programming one-handedly, holding a flashlight in his other hand. I had seen enough things to recognize a big bomb when I saw one.

They wanted to put a bomb in the Avengers' Tower.

Holy fucking shit!

"JARVIS!" The shrill noise Vanessa let out was unpleasing for the ears and I winced. The three guys saw us and the one who had been programming the bomb – a freaking bomb! – spoke into the headset he was wearing.

"Mister Stark has been warned and is coming with Lord Thor." the AI answered in a calm voice. The perfect butler. He didn't have the time to panic. I would have rolled my eyes if I hadn't been shaking at the sight of a_ bomb_. Also known as _'highly dangerous explosive'_.

Goddamn!

The part of the window that had been cut – it was quite big, actually – fell down, exploding in dangerous sharp pieces of glass when it hit the street. The three guys entered and the hole-maker and the bomb-programmer jumped on us.

Literally.

I cried out, loudly, as the bomb-programmer fell on me and I began to kick. I was using no precise method. Just kicking for the sake of hitting the danger trying to catch me and… trying to tie me up!

Vanessa was spitting curses mixed with short sentences such as "Don't touch me!" "Leave me alone!" and "Stop it!". I, for my part, was unable to say something. Words were blocking in my throat and I could only move like a snake; twisting, wriggling and trying to slither away.

Tough luck. Not only I did not manage to make him bulge, but he managed to wrap my wrists together with something that felt remarkably like Duct Tape. I raised my knee between his splayed legs, tried to bite him. My knee met something hard and my teeth didn't close on any skin. Damn it!

"Calm or I shoot you!" the man hissed menacingly and I heard the click of a gun's safety being pulled back. Dread settled in my stomach and I swallowed, dropping my legs back on the floor. I could only hope that Tony and Thor would arrive soon.

The man tied my feet together – definitely Duct Tape – before swinging me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I let out an offended noise as his arm went around my hips to hold me in place and I wriggled slightly, testing the waters.

"Calm!"

I obeyed. What else could I do? Get killed? Not my priority.

"What are we going to do with them?" the hole-maker asked, balancing my friend over his own shoulder. Ness wasn't kicking anymore and she gave me a freaked out look as the man went back to the window.

"Pourquoi…?" she began in French.

"Shut up!" the third man hissed, playing nervously with a gun. I bit my lip, hard, trying to hold back the upcoming tears of panic. We were being kidnapped.

"We will use them as pressure means. We might get a pretty load of money." the man who was holding me replied.

"Moyen de pression?!" I gasped, in French. Ness gave me a wide-eyed look.

The jetpacks suddenly came to life and we both let out a piercing scream when our kidnappers jumped through the hole and flew at such a speed that my ears popped painfully. A saw a spot of gold and red glinting in the night, city lights playing on metal, and I shouted: "Ironman!"

The man holding me grumbled a curse and _plunged_. The scream blocked in my throat. Vanessa's, though, echoed in the sky.

We suddenly landed inside a truck, the back doors closing behind us with a slam. The kidnappers dropped us on the metal floor of the truck and one jumped behind the wheel.

"Que veulent-ils?" Vanessa asked softly. "Pourquoi veulent-ils nous utiliser comme un moyen de pression? On connaît à peine les Avengers à part ce qu'on a vu d'eux dans les films!"

I shook my head, throat dry. "Je ne le sais pas… J'aimerais le savoir…"

One of the men – the hole-maker – was doing something. He turned toward us, features settled in a frown, holding… Holy fucking shit, a syringe!

A whimper escaped me. Were they about to poison us?

"You're going to sleep for a while." The hole-maker whispered. "Don't worry." He grabbed my arms and I began to struggle.

"No needle, no needle." I babbled, trying to jerk away. The pain came, sudden and painful, the metal entering the muscle, cold and sharp. I let out a desperate sound and tears rolled down my cheeks as I struggled to calm down and breathe deeply. God, but I _hated_ needles!

"There. No need to make a fuss." The hole-maker grumbled, taking another syringe for Vanessa.

I would have sent him to hell but a drowsy feeling was spreading through my veins and I was suddenly tired, so tired.

I blacked out.

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_*French translations:_

_1. "Pourquoi...?" **-** "Why...?"_

_2. "Moyen de pression?!" **-** "Pressure means?!"_

_3. "Que veulent-ils? P__ourquoi veulent-ils nous utiliser comme moyen de pression? On connaît à peine les Avengers à part ce qu'on a vu d'eux dans les films!" **-** "What do they want? Why do they want to use us as pressure means? We know nothing of the Avengers apart from what we saw of them in the movies!"_

_4. "Je ne le sais pas… J'aimerais le savoir…" **-** "I don't know... I would like to know..."_

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**Hope you like it for now. I know it's a little abrupt for a first chapter, but trust me, I have a lot coming after that.**

**I will update regularly, on Saturdays.**

**As I said, if you spot mistakes, notify me and I will correct them. Thanks!**

**By the way, for those who wonder, the reason why Iron Man 3, Thor 2 and Captain America 2 aren't mentioned is because what happens in those movies put come a little in the way of the story. So we just preferred to act as if they did not exist at the moment. Thanks for your understanding!**


	3. Chapter 2: Captive

**So, here is the "What happens after the whole kidnapping thing"**

**In which some people are crazy maniacs with guns and you keep wondering where the hell I'm going with this chapter...**

**Somewhere, I swear.**

**But since I like a little suspense... The question will float around for a while.**

**Anyway, hope you enjoy!**

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**Chapter 2: Captive**

I woke up with a pounding head and the taste of sand in my mouth. Sitting up slowly, I had to lean against a wall so that I wouldn't fall. I waited until the room stopped spinning to analyse my environment.

The room was quite small, about ten feet by twelve feet. There was a small toilet cabinet in a corner, two dusty mattresses on the ground, a small pile of hole-filled blankets at my feet and a worn wooden table with a pitcher, which I hoped was filled with water. The door had no handle inside and was made of some kind of metal. And a huge mirror covered one of the walls… unless the mirror was the wall itself.

I dragged myself on my feet and walked slowly toward the small table, feeling the world spin around me.

The pitcher was filled with water, thankfully. I drank about half of the warm water and putted the rest aside for Vanessa; her throat probably wouldn't be better once she woke up.

Vanessa.

I went back to my still-drugged friend's side and sat beside her, pulling one of the 'blankets' over her. She looked peaceful beside the occasional shiver that caused her to frown in her sleep, her slightly freckled nose wrinkling. Her skin was pale – a bit darker than mine, though – with a hint of pink marring her cheeks, and long chestnut-blond hair curling slightly around her face. What was bothering me, though, were the pale eyelids still covering her warm brown eyes. I seriously hoped that she would wake up soon.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I looked at my own reflection. Dark brown hair framed my face, the pale skin dotted here and there with freckles. Alert grey-blue eyes – more gray than blue, in this small cell – were staring back at me with a hint of stress and tiredness shining in their depths. I shook my head and pushed a strand of hair from my face, noticing the pink stripes on my wrists where the Duct Tape had been. I touched one with my fingertip; they were quite sensitive…

A sudden click coming from the door made me jump and I tried to do some quick moves. But I was still too groggy to move with my usual speed and just ended up making the room spin around me. When the colours cleared, I saw a man closing the door after exchanging some words with whoever was near.

He looked surprised when he saw me. "Ah, you are awake."

I snorted. "I don't sleep well on cold stony floors…" I answered shortly, irritated.

The man frowned. "Too bad. This is your… apartment for the time you will spend here." His eyes fell on Vanessa and he smiled. The kind of smile that sent shivers dancing down my back. "Well, well. What have we gotten here? Such a pretty Sleeping Beauty."

"You don't approach her." I hissed. "You leave her the fuck alone or I swear to God that I'll kill you, even if I end up dead in the process."

The man chuckled darkly but I closed my hands into fists and stood on shaky legs. "Protective, aren't you? Sleeping Beauty has a guard dog." He shook his head, visibly amused, and I felt my patience slip away. He took a step toward us and I raised my fists in a silent challenge.

"You stay away from my friend." I growled. Without looking back, I nudged her shoulder with my right foot. _Please, Ness, wake up!_

The man's smirk deepened. "Calm down, little tiger. I won't hurt your friend. You're only here for business."

"Business? How the hell do two girls from Quebec have to do with your business?" I asked, shaking with nerves. "Why the hell did you kidnap us in the first place? What do you want from us?"

"Yeah… What… What do you want from us?" Vanessa asked in a weak voice, slowly pushing herself up on her elbows. I let out a relieved sigh.

"From you?" The man laughed. "From you, nothing. From the Avengers…" The smile became dangerous.

I swallowed. Would the Avengers pay their price for _us_? We had just met a few hours ago – _if_ it was only a few hours ago and not more – and they did not trust us, visibly.

The man suddenly produced a gun from God knows where and pulled the safety back, saying with a smile: "It is, sadly for you, loaded. I would suggest you to follow me calmly, without making a fuss."

"Where…" I began.

He cut me. "Don't worry, little tiger. Just in a special room to make a special video which we will then send to New York." He showed us the door with the muzzle of the gun. "Go and knock three times. The doorkeeper will open. Then, you will follow him calmly. One false step and I might accidentally touch the trigger…"

This guy was a… a crazy… a maniac! We both obeyed, though. The menace of the gun was a silent reminder of our helplessness.

Ness knocked three times and the door was opened. The guy outside wore an army rifle and had a long scar marring his left cheek, missing his left eye by less than an inch.

We walked through a maze of corridors, turning left, then right, then left again. I soon lost my usually good sense of direction. The two men forced us into a room where a man and a woman were discussing softly. The woman was holding a camera. When we entered, they stopped conversing and looked at us.

"Do you really think that they will be enough to convince the Avengers to bow to our demands?" the woman asked, analysing us with critical ice blue eyes. Her hair was long, sandy blond, curling slightly at the tips. She wore a red lipstick and a blouse that putted her impressive cleavage in evidence. I held back a sneer.

The man analysed us with dark greyish brown eyes and pulled a gun from the middle of nowhere. "The Avengers won't let two innocents die if they can prevent it." he said calmly, playing with the gun's safety. Our cell's doorkeeper exited the room on a small nod from the man who definitely looked like the boss, leaving Ness and I alone with Maniac, Blondie and him.

"Your names?" the Boss asked.

"What if we don't answer?" I asked back, biting my tongue too late. Oh, shit…

The Boss shrugged. "You can give us false names if you please. We're going to use them in the video, that is all."

I bit my lip, hard. "Lex." I finally hissed.

Nessa shook her head and gave him one of her death glares. "Ness." she hissed.

The Boss nodded. "Very well. Sit." He pointed two chairs with his gun. "No harm will come to you if you follow the orders and are polite. Follow our instructions carefully once the camera is on; it would be a shame to have to hurt you…"

We obeyed; what else could we do?

If I thought the situation was crazy enough, I got a nasty surprise in the form of the message we were supposed to say together, at the same time.

"Hello, the Avengers. We really need your help. They are holding us captive and they'll kill us soon if you don't do as they say. You have to take the Teleportation Device from S.H.I.E.L.D. and bring it to them. Soon you will have another message. In it will be the location where you need to place the bag."

Seriously?

We did it as he said – again, the gun was _really_ convincing – and my lip was bleeding by the time Maniac brought us back to our cell.

"Now, now, little tiger. Don't bite your own lip so harshly for nothing." Maniac said teasingly before closing the door behind him.

I crashed down on a mattress, cringing when it freed a cloud of dust.

"I can't fucking believe it." I whispered. "The Avengers barely know us. Why would they do something such as shipping something to those… bastards… behind S.H.I.E.L.D.'s back?" I voiced my fear aloud and Vanessa's eyes darkened. She did not answer me and I plunged into my swirl of thoughts, blocking every outside sensation.

I don't know how much time we spent lost in our own worlds, sprawled on our thin mattresses. We both kind of came back to life when the door opened, Maniac entering with two trays of food.

"Kitty, kitty. Food is served!" he called teasingly. I gave him the finger before I could think about it. Thankfully, he only chuckled. "The princess' and her cat's dinner is served." he said, before exiting the room.

"Princess?" Vanessa repeated, disbelief colouring her voice.

"He called you Sleeping Beauty while you were still unconscious." I muttered, picking up a bowl, which looked as if it was filled with thick soup… or wet bread. "That guy's crazy anyway."

"Princess? I don't want him to call me that! That's something I would want my boyfriend to call me. Not some jerk that I don't even know! Worse, someone who kidnapped me!" Vanessa said angrily. The look in her eyes almost made me pity the guy. Almost.

I sighed and nodded. "He calls me 'little tiger'. It's cute… but it's a pet name. I don't want that… guy," I spitted the word, "to give me pet names. If I ever have a boyfriend, it'll be okay, though." I added. "If ever."

We ate our bread soup in silence, focussed on swallowing the "food" as fast as possible. The taste was disgusting!

We fell back on our mattresses and just lost ourselves in our own thoughts again, sometimes falling asleep and waking up only an hour or two later.

We spent a few days – they hadn't taken my watch, so I knew the date – in the cell. Maniac brought us food three times a day, lingering each time a bit longer than the previous. He kept flirting – badly – with my best friend, whose answering glares could have melted ice.

And, as his visits became longer, I found myself keeping an eye on the gun he always had at his waist more often. Soon, it became an obsession. I had to have that gun. Take it and break free. Those small "quarters" were slowly driving me crazy.

On our fourth day spent in the cell, Maniac came in with his gun but no food. It was not time for our breakfast anyway and I understood there was something else going on.

"Je crois qu'ils veulent que nous envoyons un autre message.*" I muttered in French.

Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest. She visibly wasn't warm to the idea.

"A good morning to you too, princess!" Maniac said joyously. He waved his gun around and I followed the movement with my eyes, body tense and at the ready. Now. I had to get that gun now. Knock three times on the door and kill the rifleman. Steal his rifle and try to find our way out. Now, before they killed us because the Avengers probably wouldn't give them the "teleportation device", whatever it really was.

"We are going to the conference room, this morning! Follow…" His sentence was cut in half when I lunged for the gun. He fell on his back with a shout and we began to roll around, him trying to keep his gun, and I trying to pry it from his hands. The noise we made probably worried the doorkeeper; he opened the door and peered inside… only to have Vanessa jumping at his throat.

It was short. As my hands finally closed on the gun, I felt a sudden pain in my shoulder, making me cry out and release my grip on the weapon. I rolled off Maniac, clutching my bleeding shoulder and saw him coldly putting back the long knife inside his shirt. "That was a bad idea, little tiger." he said softly, pulling me up by the hair.

The rifleman had easily overpowered my friend, who was now swung over his shoulder, shaking her head slowly. I saw a trickle of blood going down her temple and I bit down a cry of rage. Why, goddamn, why were they doing this?

"Walk." Maniac hissed in my ear. "One falter and I kill you, am I clear?"

I nodded, swallowing back tears.

My vision was so blurred while we walked that the maze of corridors was even less recognizable than the first time. I was still clutching my shoulder in a painful grip, trying to stop the bleeding. The sleeve of my blouse was already crimson and my fingers were wet with the warm blood seeping through the cotton.

Maniac pushed us into the room and closed the door behind us after the rifleman had dropped my dizzy friend on a chair. The Boss was there and so was Blondie. This time, she wasn't holding a camera, but a laptop, which had probably cost over eight hundred dollars from the looks of it.

"What happened?" the Boss asked, upon seeing the state in which Vanessa and I were.

"They tried to take some weapons without my permission." Maniac answered.

The Boss frowned. "Go and get some bandages." he ordered Maniac, who nodded and exited the room without voicing any protest, even if the dark look he threw me probably meant that he wasn't too eager with the idea of bandaging our wounds.

Blondie shook her head. "How are we going to explain their poor state to the Avengers?" she muttered, giving us a glare. I gave her the finger. I was too much in pain already to care about the consequences.

"So, what are we gonna say to the 'vengers this time?" Ness asked, eyes somewhat glazed over.

"You're going to tell them where exactly they have to put the bag containing the Teleportation Device so that we can retrieve it safely." Blondie answered, putting down the laptop in front of us. Ah. A webcam

The Boss putted a mask on. "I shall speak to them if they do not have the Device." he said and I cringed.

Maniac came back in the room with bandages, which he dropped on the table before heading for the darkest corner of the room.

Ness pressed one to the side of her head and sighed. I was awkwardly rolling one around my shoulder when the screen suddenly lit up. Wait, we were going to speak _directly_ to them?

Apparently, yes, for Tony Stark's face suddenly materialized on the screen. His eyes widened when he saw us. We probably were a poor sight to behold. Vanessa's face had a trickle of blood going down her left cheek and the beginning of a bruise near her left eye. Her hair was a dirty mess of knots and she had dark shadows under her eyes. I wasn't much better. Wrapping an already reddish bandage around my shoulder, dark shadows under my eyes, my dark hair oily and looking like a crow's nest.

"What happened?" Tony breathed softly.

I gave him something between a small smile and a grimace in answer. "We did something stupid. Do you have the Teleportation Device?" I asked softly, lowering my eyes to the keyboard. How could I look at him when I was talking for _them_?

I raised my head a tiny bit and saw Tony frown. "We don't. S.H.I.E.L.D. won't even let us approach it. Wish them luck; they won't get it easily." he said, crossing his arms over his chest, blocking the blue glow of the Arc Reactor.

I heard Maniac move in his corner and swallowed a noise of fear. Panic was rising into me. They would kill us if they didn't get that thing!

The Boss approached the table. "Mister Stark." he said, lowering himself so that the webcam could see his mask-covered face. "It would be a shame to have to kill two innocent people for the sake of an experimental device, don't you think?" He closed his hand in a vice-like grip on my wounded shoulder and I barely muffled a wail.

Vanessa winced when the Boss gripped the back of her neck fiercely. Tony's eyes widened as he heard what the Boss said in a low voice: "I swear that we'll get it somehow."

He released Nessa's neck and my shoulder and I choked on another noise of pain, cursing softly under my breath. My shoulder was _pain_ and I just lost it.

"Bastard." I hissed. "Fucking bastard!" That one was a shout. I stood abruptly and felt Vaness' hand _squeezing_ my arm painfully.

"Lex, calm down, please!" she whispered.

The Boss gave me a cold look. "Name-calling doesn't bother me. I've been called bastard before."

"Do I look like a bill, damn it?! We're humans, not money. You can't do whatever you want with us, asshole!" I took a deep breath, fighting the instinct encouraging me to just jump at his throat and _strangle_ him. "Leave us the fuck alone! Didn't you hear him? You won't get that thing! Not through the Avengers! Not through us!" My nails were digging in my palms and something wet was dripping between my fingers. A subtle pain was coming from my clenched hands, a nagging in the back of my mind. I opened my shaky fists and stared at the scarlet moon crescents bleeding in my palms.

I dropped back down on the chair, dragging a hand through my dark hair, thinking too late about the blood. Anyway. My hair was already a mess. It would take me at least an hour to clean it if we ever got out of here alive.

Alive… How long did we still have to live?

I felt something growing in my chest, painful. A shiver shook me and I bit my already bleeding palm, _hard_, trying to hold back the upcoming tsunami of emotions.

_Control, _damn it! _Control_!

Tony was looking worryingly at me and I saw him mouthing the words "_You're alright?_" I shook my head in answer, teeth digging deeper in my stinging palm. The Boss was talking in a low voice with Blondie and Maniac in a corner.

Vanessa pulled my hand away, hissing: "Arrête ça!*" She pulled my head against her shoulder and I just brought my other hand to my mouth, teeth closing on my wrist. Pain, sharp and bright. It helped me to focus. When I raised my eyes back to the computer, instead of meeting brown eyes, I met ocean blues.

Steve shook his head upon seeing the state in which we were and the worried look in his eyes darkened to an angry one.

"Save us… Please…" I begged softly, a whisper, throat raw from holding back screams, tears stinging the corner of my eyes.

"Tony is tracing the computer signal." Natasha said, suddenly appearing in front of the webcam. I felt Nessa nod vigorously before Maniac came to us and forced us to stand. "We're going back to your apartment, girls!"

Just before we exited the room, I saw the Boss, still masked, sitting in front of the computer.

* * *

_*French Translations:_

_1. "Je crois qu'ils veulent que nous envoyons un autre message." - "I think they want us to send another message."_

_2. "Arrête ça!" - "Stop that!"_

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**So... **

**Comments are always welcome.**

**Mistakes are mine. If you spot some, as said previously, let me know.**

**See you next Saturday!**


	4. Chapter 3: Rescued

**And here is chapter 3!**

**In which pain becomes ****unnerving and writing in the first person sometimes makes you want to bang your head on walls.**

**"Warnings" for stubbornness, emotional distress and injuries.**

**Enjoy and thanks for reading, favoriting, following and reviewing!**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Rescued**

I tugged absentmindedly at the bandages wrapped around my left hand and Ness swatted my fingers away. "Stop that!" she growled.

I obeyed and tiredly curled into a small ball on my mattress. Four days, lying in the dirt, barely eating enough and with nobody coming to clean up a little bit. I felt sticky, dirty and our wounds were not healing fast. My hands kept itching and my shoulder was swollen and sensitive to the touch. I knew from the worried dark look in Vanessa's eyes that Maniac's weapon hadn't been clean; my shoulder was infected.

As for Vanessa, she was often whining softly about headaches, but the wound at her temple was healing. The bruises on her side were slowly paling to yellow and I still felt a deep rage toward both Maniac – that asshole now leaved his gun outside the room – and the doorkeeper.

Days passed, slowly, painfully. I was tired and preferred to lie on my uninjured side, tracing meaningless patterns in the dirt before softly blowing on them and starting over again. Ness had had a rage crisis, screaming and cursing and just letting out everything. She was now mostly silent, doing the same thing as I did. We sometimes shared long looks, just drowning silently in each other's eyes, begging for the same thing.

_Help_.

The sound of the door unlocking roused me from an uneasy sleep and I forced myself up, swallowing a wave of nausea.

"Hello Princess! I bring your food for today!" Maniac said, grinning. "Hello little tiger, I have your food too." he added with a frightening grin.

"Don't call us that, you creep!" Vanessa replied angrily, talking to him for the first time since our last trip to the conference room.

Maniac only smiled indulgently. "Aw, princess, you hurt my feelings!" he mocked. His grin grew when he caught sight of my shivering silhouette. "Well, well, little tiger… Feeling under the weather?" he asked.

"Fuck off, asshole." I hissed through chattering teeth. Why was the cell so cold all of the sudden? I rubbed my arms and gave him a glare as he exited the tiny room, laughing loudly.

Vanessa looked pissed and she seemed to hesitate between either throwing the "food" at the wall or eating it. With a sigh, she took the two plates and set one down in front of me. "Let's eat." she muttered.

I fell back down on my side, hit by a new wave of nausea. "Not hungry." I answered, shivering madly.

Definitely looking worried, Ness gently pressed her hand on my forehead, eyes widening in shock. Her hand was cool but felt great on my sweaty skin. "Oh, shit…" she whispered.

"Fever?" I asked, grimacing when she nodded. "So it's either we get saved, we try to escape and get killed or we die in that small cell." I shook my head, biting my lip when the colours blurred and spun. My head, my poor head… "That's not the future I had in mind…" I whispered.

Vaness stood, gritting her teeth, and went to the pitcher of warm water. That's when I noticed the dark red stain darkening the bottom of her back. "You're wounded!" I exclaimed feebly but with a spark of my usual fire, my throat raw and my voice thin. "And you did not tell me!"

"Look, I'm sorry, but I didn't want to worry you and it's not as if it was infected. But your shoulder is, so stop worrying over me and take care of yourself. Here, I got water. Drink some." she said, giving me the water.

I drank only part of it; rationing water was necessary since they only gave us one pitcher a day.

I distantly heard Vanessa knocking three times on the door but my mind began to wander and I missed the exchange, only focussing on the present moment when my friend kneeled before me.

"They're bringing medication. We'll treat your shoulder and find a way to escape this hell." she told me. I nodded weakly and closed my eyes. I was so tired… My shoulder was a constant ache in the back of my mind.

Five minutes passed, then ten, fifteen… I lost count, my mind starting to wander again. I thought about colours. Grey and blue, with a touch a silver and a tiny flicker of leaf green. That's how I liked to describe my eyes. But they were now glassy as I looked at myself in the mirror. _Dark, burning and shining… Fever… I have a fever… Feverish skin, sweat… Sweet… The sweet taste of something… I want chocolate…_

Vaness was growing restless, pacing around the cell and shooting glances at the door.

The sudden thunder of a rifle gun made us jump and I rolled on my back in surprise, whimpering when a lick of _fire_ went down my shoulder and ended somewhere in the middle of my back.

What the fuck was happening?

I could hear something that sounded like Maniac, outside the cell. "Come on! We need to use them as shields. They won't shoot them…" He was cut abruptly by a sudden noise, which I did not recognize.

Vanessa and I exchanged a look, the flicker of hope I felt shining in her brown eyes. Had the Avengers came for us?

The door of the cell opened and Ness spun on her heels, visibly ready to fight if she needed too. I tried to stand too, help her, watch her already wounded back. But no sooner was I on my feet that everything began to spin around me at a breathtakingly speed.

"Whoa!" The noise escaped me as I lost feet, falling. I was ready for the pain of the hard floor… Instead, I was caught by a pair of strong arms and cradled against a warm chest. I blinked at the white star stretched in front of my nose and let out a weak chuckle, before a harsh cough shook my already trembling body.

"I got her!" I knew that voice, did I not? But the name was escaping me.

I heard Vanessa wail in pain and I wriggled. She needed help! But the arms holding me tightened and wriggling fast became tiring.

"Calm down!" I suddenly could see Vaness, held up by something red and gold, which was shooting blue balls of energy here and there. She looked frightened but it became anger when her eyes fell on me.

I raised a fingertip to trace the white star – or try to, since everything was blurry. I was so tired and still in pain and whoever was holding me was warm and comforting and was taking me away from the tiny cell.

I gave that person my complete trust here and then and blissfully let the tiredness wash over me.

*o*O*o*O*o*

I woke up suddenly, roused from my sleep by _fire_ in my shoulder. I sat up with a whimper… and almost threw up. I flopped back down. I was hot, too hot. Water… I needed water. _Pain_… Fire… It hurt.

A cool washcloth was pressed on my forehead and I blinked, cracking my eyes open. Pain… My eyes… Light… Too bright… I closed them tight.

"Can you lower the lights?" someone said. Feminine voice… I knew that voice…

"Nessa…" I croaked out. "Hot…"

She shushed me. I tried to open my eyes again.

I was in some kind of bright room – hospital maybe – in a bed. Vanessa was sitting beside me, her eyes shining with worry and a bandage tightly rolled around her stomach and lower back. On my other side, there was a man. Brown hair, brown eyes with flickers of… green? I knew his name… B… B something… Like a flag… A green flag… Banner!

"You're Bruce Banner." I said softly. "You're a doctor."

He nodded. "I am."

"Then why the hell does it still hurt?" I asked. "Why am I so hot!?" I growled, pushing away the blanket covering me. The cool air of the room raised goosebumps on my skin and I sighed.

Nessa pulled the blanket back up. "Lex. You've got no shirt on." she told me.

That's when I noticed that I was indeed bare from the waist up if I didn't count the sweat-drenched bandage sticking to my shoulder. But strangely, the thought of being half-nude in front of Bruce and Vanessa did not seem to bother me as much as it should have.

A sudden sting in my arm and I let out a hiss of displeasure at the new pain. "What was that for?" I asked, sticking a bare foot out of the bed in an attempt to cool myself.

"Morphine." Bruce answered. "I have to change your bandage." he added.

I sat up slowly, the blanket pooling on my lap, as Bruce putted gloves on. He turned to me and nodded. "You're able to hold yourself up?" he asked. I nodded slowly; my head felt heavy all of the sudden. "Raise your arm a bit." he ordered.

I obeyed, briefly fearing the pain. But none came. It was as if my brain was disconnected from my nerves. Everything was fuzzy; I felt as if I was kind of floating…

Everything was kind of a blur after that. Bruce bandaged my shoulder, made me to swallow pills for my fever and forced me to lie down before changing Ness' bandage. We were stuck in hospital beds… I _hated_ hospitals.

I learned that we were in the Healing Wing of the Helicarrier, though, not a hospital, which was a bit comforting.

A full day went by before I was able to do more than sit up for a short while. My fever finally abated and my body stopped having highs and downs. This was great since I had more than enough of my inconstant shivering.

On the second day, I got out of the bed and putted on some real clothes; comfortable jeans and a black sweater with gold wings in the back and the words "Angel of my Love" in golden letters written over a heart of the same color on the front. I silently thanked whoever had left clothes that fitted. Vanessa had been excused the day before and, even if she spent a lot of time with me, she wasn't there right now and I was _bored_. In fact, with my still bandaged shoulder, I should stay in bed like a good girl but seriously… I was sick of it.

I tiptoed out of the healing wing, pulling my hood on and sticking as much as possible to the walls. I finally reached an elevator and hesitated. Where the hell was I going? Where was Vaness, now? How could I find her?

"Are you lost, little one?" A sudden booming voice made me almost jump out of my skin. I let a shriek and spun wildly on my heel.

Thor, God of Thunder, gave me an apologetic look. "I am truly sorry. I did not want to frighten you so, young one."

I breathed deeply to calm my pounding heart. "Oh my God, you surprised me." I huffed. My God indeed. I mentally slapped myself.

The god cocked his head and observed me with those alien blue eyes of his. "Aren't you the Daughter of the Lake's friend?"

Daughter of the Lake? What the heck? My mouth was hanging open in surprise. I hastily closed it, my teeth snapping together. "What? Who?"

Thor hesitated. "Your blond friend, the young lady whom the Man of Iron calls Loch Ness, I believe." he said.

I laughed. I couldn't help myself. Ness, oh my God, Ness! Tony Stark dared to call her like the lake in Scotland? Oh God! I chocked on my saliva and coughed.

"Are you well?" Thor asked me. "Maybe you should go to the Midgardian Healers."

I gave him a dark look. Hell, no! I had just gotten out of the Healing Wing, I wasn't going back, thank you!

I shook my head, dark hair flying around and noticed that it was clean. Okay… Somebody had washed my hair… Well, I wasn't going to whine about that part. The smell of plain soap was far better than the smell of oil and blood.

I focussed back on the mountain of muscles in front of me. "Do you know where my friend is… erm… my Lord?" I asked politely. How was I supposed to call him? Almighty Thor? God of Thunder?

He smiled; a huge happy show of white teeth. "Last time I did see her, she was having a heated argument with the Man of Iron and the Hawk Man on nicknames. I shall guide you to her if you desire so, little one."

I nodded, swallowing back a grimace. I know I wasn't tall but still hated to be called 'small' to my face. "I would be most grateful if you could do so." I answered, thanking the skies for my obsessive reading. I had quite a large vocabulary.

Thor's smile grew larger – how was it even possible – and he gently took my small hand in his. "Follow me." But he didn't start walking. Instead, he frowned and looked at me. "How are you called, young Midgardian?" he asked.

"Alexanne. De Bellefeuille." I answered. He cocked his head to the left and his smile came back. "You could translate De Bellefeuille by… erm… Prettyleaf or Greenleaf, I guess, in English." I added.

"I shall call you so, Daughter of the Leaves." Thor exclaimed and I discreetly winced at the booming noise. As boisterous and loud as his element, wasn't he?

"Actually, Alexanne would be perfectly alright!" I said urgently, forced to break into a small jog to keep up with Thor's long strides. He visibly didn't hear me, pulling me along, my hand still imprisoned in his.

I sighed and let myself be pulled – why did I feel like a dog on a leash? – distractedly looking around and committing some hallways and an elevator or two to my memory.

We passed in front of two large doors and Thor abruptly stopped. I ran into his back and let out something between a small cry of surprise and a grunt of pain. Thor did not seem to hear me, only giving me a slightly puzzled look when I rubbed my nose gently with my free hand.

"What's going on?" I muttered.

Thor heard me, this time. "I want to show you around." he said. "This is what the Man of Iron did with your friend." He nodded. "This is the gym. I believe there are some of my shield mates practicing. Come. I shall do the presentations." I shook my head but it was of no use. Thor easily pulled me inside and I was too proud to actually let him _drag_ me.

I shook my head hard under the hood. It made me slightly dizzy, but it also brought some dark strands over my face, partially hiding it. With my free hand, I pulled the hood lower. I just wanted to find Vaness and find a way to go back home. I still was under the stress of the whole kidnapping thing and my difficulties to sleep normally – thank my shoulder and the nightmares for that – did not make me very friendly.

There were three Avengers in the gym. Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton were sparring against Steve Rogers. And I looked from under my hood, fascinated. It was kind of a dance; the three of them moved gracefully, never losing their balance and I felt a flicker on envy in my gut at the strength and control I could see.

Thor, surprisingly, waited patiently for them to notice us. When they did so, I subtly moved behind Thor… and he pulled me in front of him, _finally_ releasing my arm.

"Friends!" he exclaimed. "This is Alexanne, Daughter of the Leaves." Could I die or disappear, please?

Clint snorted. "I see dark hair and a hood. Surely she has a face?" He crossed his arms over his chest and a feeling of dread mixed with my silent happy squeals of fangirl. I raised a shaking head to the dark hood and pulled it back, before pushing the strands of hair away from my burning face.

Whatever I was ready for was not Clint and Natasha's somewhat respectful looks and Steve's slightly worried one.

"Aren't you supposed to still be in the Healing Wing?" the captain asked me and I could not hold back a grimace.

"I am alright." I lied smoothly. The lie was contradicted by a loud yelp when Thor's hand fell like a rock on my wounded shoulder. I stiffened in pained shock before jerking away from the God of Thunder and protectively pressing a gentle hand over my throbbing shoulder. "That one hurt!" I hissed angrily through gritted teeth.

"And I'm not going back!" I growled when Steve took a step toward me. "No way. I'm not moving my butt from here unless I decided so. This is far more interesting than the same four boring walls."

"Won't Loch Ness be looking for you?" Clint asked and I glared.

"I doubt she likes that nickname so I would politely ask you to stop calling her so." I said somewhat icily, annoyance making my voice waver a bit.

The archer raised his hands defensively. "Alright, tiger. Don't…" He did not finish his sentence, giving me a perplexed look when I flinched – quite violently – at the nickname and clutched at my sensitive shoulder.

"Where is Vanessa?" I asked, trying to hide my reaction and fixing a blank spot on the floor.

"Alexanne De Bellefeuille, what the fuck do you think you're doing here!?" came a shout. Well, speaking of the wolf…

I turned on my heel, releasing my shoulder and plastering a fake happy smile on my face at the sight of my angry best friend coming toward me. "Taking a small walk around? I feel well. Not drowsy, not in pain," I saw Steve frowning and Natasha arching an eyebrow, "and not tired at all!" I said in a falsely cheerful voice. Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest and gave me a glare, arching her eyebrows, the look on her face visibly meaning: "Seriously? You think I will believe that?"

The smile faded away and I twitched, crossing my own arms. "I am well." I growled.

"You clearly are not. Don't lie to me, Alexanne! You should be at the Hospital Wing, not wandering everywhere on the ship!" Vanessa growled back, clearly frustrated.

"Okay, mommy!" I replied, irritated and not resisting the little voice begging me to make fun of her protectiveness. Somewhat, the thought was both soothing and unnerving.

"I am pleased to see you, Daughter of the Lake. Your friend here was looking for you." A hiss escaped me when his hand hit me square between my shoulder blades. I almost fell forward but Thor's suddenly gentle hands held me up. "Forgive me, I did not want to make you lose feet." he said. "Have I harmed you?"

"Nah, it's alright. There's no blood, I'm okay." I said in a rush, shrugging the god's hands off and taking some distance. "See? I'm alright."

Touching… These days, when I was conscious, touching made me react quite badly. I was a bit of a masochist but pain like the one coming back in my shoulder – the morphine had definitely worn off – was not something I enjoyed. The memory of pain was sometimes even worse than the pain itself.

Clint was looking at me curiously and I suddenly felt like something on display. "What?" I bit out, more aggressively than I meant to. Vanessa's deepening frown made me cringe inwardly.

"Tiger. Definitely like a tiger." I flinched two times. It was almost instinctive; I could barely hold it back. All of this because of Maniac's words and the pain he had brought to me… I seriously hoped that the bastard was dead. A sudden rage rose in me and I shot a brief look around the small gymnasium. I needed something to hit.

Punching bag.

I had forgotten the pain until I swung my fist into the bag. Thankfully, I did not use my wounded arm. But the comeback of the hit reverberated through the top of my back and my two shoulders. A surprised – and pained – gasp escaped me before I could hold it back.

And a scream ripped itself from my throat when Vanessa angrily closed a hand around my bicep. I spun wildly on my heel, lifting a leg… and catching my best friend in the knees! She released me with a surprised huff, falling backward. I caught her hand, trying to hold her up but her weight brought us both to the floor. The shock made us both gasp in pain.

"What was that for!?" Nessa cried out. "You go back to the Healing Wing, now! You visibly are not alright! Your eyes are bright with pain and you react badly to everything!"

"I won't go back!" I shouted. My best friend reeled in shock, giving me a wide-eyed look. I never yelled when I was with her. Talk loudly, laugh noisily, yes. But raise my voice like this, anger increasing its loudness; never. "I hear them talk, in low voices. We will reach the Tower in about two days." Which made me wonder about how long we had been out. "They want me to see a psychologist, Vanessa. They pretend something is wrong with my emotional responses and that I need a professional!" I was shaking now. "They think I'm abnormal…" I gasped out.

I needed air, fresh air. I needed to be alone, to have them stop looking at me. Why were they looking at me like this? I wasn't abnormal. I didn't need a psychologist… I needed air… I needed to be left alone!

I ran away.

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**Wondering where Alexanne is running to?**

**See you all next week! ;)**


	5. Chapter 4: Recovery Time

**Here comes chapter 4!**

**In which psychologists can't help everybody.**

**Warnings for: Emotional distress (or something not so far off).**

**French translations are at the bottom, as usual.**

**Enjoy!**

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**Chapter 4: Recovery Time**

My fleeing was cut short by a sudden wall – or should I say man? – whom I hit with all my gathered momentum. Pain exploded in my shoulder when I fell on it and I barely had the time to bring my wrist to my mouth to muffle my wail. I curled into a small ball, willing the pain away. My eyes drifted to my knees instead of the man who was floor too, cursing so colorfully that I had the thought that my swearing wasn't so bad.

And over the cursing, I heard someone laughing. "The great Fury thrown to the floor by a human bullet!" a man snickered. A new string of curses fell from the lips of the one called Fury.

Fury?

Oh my God.

"Lord in Heaven, please someone, kill me now." I muttered, even if I pertinently knew that the prayer would go unnoticed. My belief in religion had disappeared over the course of the years. But right now, if there was truly a supreme higher being, I would have liked a divine intervention.

I had hit the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and thrown him to the floor.

I was_ so_ screwed!

"Lex? Are you alright?" Vanessa asked urgently, kneeling next to me and forcing me to look up.

"No. My shoulder feels as if it was filled with hungry red ants dancing around a fire pit and I'm about to get killed by the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. because I used my head for something else than translation and solving Sudoku, this time…" I whispered pathetically. Miserable, I obeyed Ness' silent urging to sit up and swallowed down a whimper. God, that man had a belly of iron!

"Could you ask whoever is snickering to shut the fuck up!?" I growled. The loud chortles of laughter were not helping with my swimming head. _Great job, De Bellefeuille_. Was it impossible for me to stay out of harm's way for a while?

Since I had begun college, my almost-never-gets-hurt luck had begun to quit me. I had crashed my car into a streetlight when coming back at two o'clock from a travel in the United Kingdom (hospital, two days, concussion and lots of huge bruises, was very lucky, could have _died!_). I had also had a huge cut in the thigh due to a stupid accident with a misplaced piece a scrape metal (risks of tetanus even if I wasn't due for my vaccine, was vaccinated, stitches, _worst_ wound ever, hate needles, still had a long scar). And there was also the time when I _sprained_ my right wrist – I'm a _right-handed_ _translator_, for God's sake – and could not work on a very important book for weeks.

Could someone explain to me what had happened between my teenage years and the beginning of my adulthood for my luck to suddenly go amiss?

"He won't kill you, you stupid…" she trailed off as she raised her eyes and a dark look clouded her brown orbs.

I followed her gaze. It fell on a brown-haired man with a _visible_ attitude and a goatee.

Anthony Edward Stark. Who was still chortling behind his hand.

"Hey, Loch Ness! Who's your bullet friend?" he asked cheerfully.

"I'm not a bullet! It was an accident!" I protested, defensively crossing my arms over my chest. What a jerk! "And my name's Alexanne."

I saw his eyebrows twitch. Ah! Try to find me a nickname with 'Alexanne', Stark!

My slightly smug look melted away when I met Fury's glare. Oh shit…

But worry about what Fury was going to do to me fell in the back of my mind when something _wet_ and _warm_ trickled down my arm. I shot a small glance to my sleeve. Nothing. But it was black, after all.

I got a hand into my shirt and trailed it down my arm, carefully avoiding my wounded shoulder. Oh, oh… I bit my lip and slowly pulled my hand out. Yep! Exactly what I had feared. My fingers were covered with fresh crimson blood. Oh, great.

Anxiety settled in the pit of my stomach when I met Vanessa's _thunderous_ glare.

"What. Did you. Do!?" she cried out and I scrambled back a little. There was something looking like tears in her eyes.

"I did not do it on purpose." I weakly protested, clutching my shoulder tightly. It hurt but it hurt less than the tightening feeling in my chest. "It must have opened when… when I hit the punching bag… Or when I fell on it… I'm sorry…"

"Stop saying that!" Vanessa growled. "Fine. You go back to the Healing Wing, now!"

"No! No, I won't go back there!" I did not need a psychologist! I was alright! They would force me to see a psychologist, because their professional opinion had decided that my emotional balance was off the charts. Which in my case was normal, thank you very much. "I'm. Not. Going. Back! I can take care of it. I know what I have to do to take care of it."

"You cannot use stitches on your own." Nessa argued.

"Maybe I can't but I'm sure I can find someone outside of those doctors that can take care of it. As long as there is some morphine, I'll be able to ignore… partly… the fact that a needle will be going in and out of my skin." I crossed my arms over my chest and clenched my jaw, raising my chin in a silent declaration of stubbornness.

That's when we both remembered that we _weren't_ alone. Everybody – and I mean _everybody_ – was looking at us.

"We're not some kind of TV show!" Vanessa bit out, shooting irritated glares around.

"But the drama is _so_ interesting!" Tony teasingly answered.

I face-palmed and let out a growl. "Seriously? Did you seriously say that? Goddamn." I muttered angrily, rubbing a hand over my forehead.

"I believe we both heard him right." Vanessa muttered, shooting her best ice-melting glare toward the man.

"Et moi qui croyait que la idiotie adolescente partait à l'âge adulte. Voilà une preuve que l'immaturité peut survivre le passage des années.*" I grumbled, just loud enough for my friend to hear.

She snorted… and gave me a wide-eyed look. "Fuck, Lex! You look like you just murdered someone!" she exclaimed, reaching out to wipe my forehead. She showed me her fingers, which were now matted with blood. Oops!

Ignoring the pull in my shoulder, I reached up with my clean hand to wipe my face, resisting the urge to lick the blood off my skin. I, unlike some people, wasn't bothered by the taste and smell of blood. But I was not about to act like a vampire in front of everybody; I was already ashamed enough as it was. "Might be about to _really_ murder someone if they don't stop looking at us like this. I'm feeling quite self-conscious right now…" I muttered.

Vanessa rolled her eyes and pulled me up. From the way she moved, I was aware that she was shielding me from Fury's glare and I didn't know whether to be annoyed or grateful of her protectiveness.

Instead, I sighed and looked over her shoulder. "I'll say it once, and only once. I am truly sorry and I swear that I did not rush into you on purpose, sir." I said to Fury, barely keeping my irritation into check so that it wouldn't slip into my voice.

The man crossed his arms over his chest and glared. "Name, age, nationality, profession!" he barked.

I gaped. "Alexanne De Bellefeuille, 24 years old, Quebec, Canada, student in translation." I answered. God, that man freaked me out. How could someone be able to give such a glare?

He turned his dark eye on Vanessa, who quickly answered. "Vanessa Poirier, 24 years old, Quebec, Canada, student in…"

"Alright! You're both strong enough to walk? And return back to Quebec? Because I don't have time to deal with this!" Fury cut her.

This time, surprisingly, it was Nessa who lost it. "Wait a second, sir! We're not ready yet!" She pointed me. "She is still wounded and she needs stitches!"

"Who cares?" I muttered. I yelped in shock when Vanessa delivered a sudden slap behind my head. "What…"

"Shut up, Alexanne!"

My mouth closed, my teeth snapping together. Had she really…. Had she really? I rubbed the back of my head with my bloodied hand, remembering said _blood_ too late. I cursed mentally and used my other hand to try to clean the sticky liquid from my hair. Had she really… My face burned. People were talking around me but I couldn't discern the words. What…

I slowly walked to a wall and leaned against it, sliding to the floor. My shoulder was throbbing but it didn't bother me. My throat was raw but I wasn't feeling thirsty. In fact…

A tear trickled down my cheek. And I let out a soft noise. Then another. Until I was suddenly laughing my ass off, holding my ribs and laughing and _laughing_.

"Alexanne?" Vanessa worriedly knelt in front of me.

"Oh God! You did! You dared!" Tears were streaming down my face and I was feeling light-headed and _free_. "You really did!"

Ness gaped. "I did what?"

I tried to push out words between chortles of helpless laughter. "You slapped me! And it… hurt! But in a way… that reminds me…" I took a deep breath. "I'm so stupid! And I feel better because you reminded me that things haven't changed so much and I'm so stupid because I'm not abnormal and I don't even know why I thought I was and you slapped me and you never do and you _slapped me_…"

Nessa clamped a hand over my mouth. "You're babbling. Breathe."

I shook her hand off and jumped on my feet, suddenly restless. I spun wildly on one foot, arms splayed wide, and almost hit Vaness. She barely avoided me with a protest on her lips and a shake of her head visibly meaning that she thought I had lost my mind and maybe it was due to the fact that I was, in fact, still a little tired and that my shoulder needed stitches. Or maybe I was still high on some kind of drug they had given me at the Healing Wing… Or maybe…

"Whoa! Slow down, you crazy girl!" Vanessa called, catching my arms. Something twisted in my shoulder and I came to a sudden halt, coming down from my sudden high. Ness released my hands and I wiped my eyes before faintly shaking my head.

"Sorry. I needed that." I breathed deeply, surrounding my senses with the smell of blood, metal and sweat and my nose twitched. A harsh pounding suddenly started in my head and I grimaced, pressing down on my temple. The world was spinning around me, colors blurred and everything suddenly looked like a kaleidoscope. "Whoa!" I lost feet, falling on my back and heard Vanessa's angry cries that she "Knew it!" and that I was "A stubborn thick-headed woman!" and that I "Needed to stop thinking that I was alright when I was not!"

Someone scooped me up and I protested, kicking. I wasn't a little girl and I wasn't bleeding so much anymore and I could walk by myself perfectly fine because it wouldn't be worse than someone who was drunk and…

"Lex, will you just calm down!"

"But I feel fucking stupid! Put me down!"

"Are you sure you will be able to walk, Daughter of the Leaves?" Ah, so it was Thor who was holding me.

I answered "Yes!" at the same time Vaness barked out a "No!" and Thor stopped moving, confused. I wriggled and tried to escape but the god gently tightened his hold on me. A sudden sting in my arm and I let out an angry hiss.

"Leave me the fuck alone with your bloody needles!"

Oh great... A drug to make me sleep. The drowsy feeling was spreading through me and I mustered whatever energy I had left to mutter a soft "Fuck you" to whoever was listening before unconsciousness took over.

*o*O*o*O*o*

I woke up with my face pressed in the pillow and hair in my mouth. There were voices in the room and it reminded me that I wasn't home but somewhere not too far from New York City. Discreetly turning on my uninjured side, I spat the hair out and listened, keeping my eyes closed and my body in its sleeping position.

"While it doesn't happen often, there is the possibility that her body reacted to the fact that she has been on drugs for days, the time the infection went down. We have readings showing that her hormonal ratings went up drastically. It might be the reason why she seemed to lose her mind for a while. She is alright now. She only needs sleep, food and I would recommend something to keep her shoulder still if she continues to put pressure on it." A man said. It wasn't Dr. Banner's voice. It wasn't someone I recognized.

A soft sigh. "Alright. She won't be happy with this but she needs to heal." Vanessa answered. I felt slightly irritated at her easy acceptance but I forced myself to relax so that it wouldn't be apparent that I was awake. "How long does she need to be kept in bed?"

"She can walk around if she wants to. But she can't do anything that might put pressure on her shoulder. And she needs to listen to her body's calls when she needs food and sleep." The man answered.

A faint growl rumbled in my throat. Holy…

I heard the door close and Vanessa suddenly was at my bedside, kneeling beside me. I opened an eye, not bothering to put an emotionless face on. I was annoyed and it showed.

"You heard what he said?" my best friend asked and I growled, sitting up.

"Yeah! I heard. She can't do anything that might put pressure on her shoulder and blah, blah, blah! That means that I can't do _anything_ at all with my arm! Fucking…" My cursing trailed off to inaudible mumbling as I had to hold myself back from _crossing my arms over my chest_! Rubbing my forehead with my right hand, I sighed. "When is Fury shipping us back to Quebec?" I asked softly, looking up.

Ness shrugged. "I don't know. After you had your weird crazy pass, Fury stomped off and the other Avengers suddenly decided on a meeting. Thor dropped you here before going back and I was left alone with you and the doctor who just exited the room." she explained calmly, looking bored.

I nodded slowly and patted the space beside me. Vanessa gave me a look before sitting on the bed. I leaned against her shoulder. "Sorry for my weird behavior. I don't know what went through me. It was freeing, though."

She hummed faintly in answer and I blinked a few times, as if it could change the whiteness of the walls.

"Ness, I don't want to stay here. At all. I need to see something else than this room or I'm going to go crazy." I said, getting out of the bed. "I need clothes. Where can I find clothes?" I muttered.

Nessa stood and opened a white door. What I had thought was a closet for medicine was in fact a closet with clothes. A lot of clothes. I went to Ness' side and looked inside. There was a bit of everything, seriously. From pressed blouses and black skirts to jeans and hoodies. I gaped.

"You're kidding me, right?" I pulled a pair of jeans out of the closet and looked at the size. Right size for me… "Wait a sec, the clothes in there aren't all mine, are they?" Ness gave me a short nod and I gave her a disbelieving look. "Where did you find yours, then?" I asked in a faint voice.

Ness rolled her eyes. "I have a full closet too."

A little light bulb suddenly clicked on in my head. "Don't tell me…"

My best friend nodded. "Yeah. Tony Stark bought a full wardrobe for me and a full wardrobe for you." she answered, crossing her arms over her chest. "And I don't even know where since we're still on the Helicarrier."

_Are they keeping us up there on purpose?_ I wondered. I shook my head and peered into the closet again.

"But we're not even staying for long… Why did he… Why didn't he only buy enough clothes for about a week? I mean…" I shook my head and threw the pair of jeans on the bed before taking out a coffee brown t-shirt with a white cup of coffee on it. "I like this one. Do you think there's a place where I can have coffee?" I asked Vanessa, who only raised her eyes to the sky.

"Yeah, I guess. But first…"

*o*O*o*O*o*

I did have a cup of coffee. One milk, two sugars. Only an hour later than what I would have liked.

Sitting near a window, I looked outside at the fluffy white clouds before looking back down at the opened leather book on my lap. I had been forced to see a psychologist, to my total unhappiness. They could call me a baby if they wanted too, but what I wanted to keep personal was mine to keep. That's all. That and the fact that no matter what Vanessa thought, psychologists couldn't help me. I had understood that I was left on my own to deal with my emotional baggage during my high school years, after a few fruitless visits to the school psychologist's office.

The psychologist – Dr. Whitelaw, if I remembered well – hadn't been so bad, though. She had tried to encourage me to talk and had seemed happy when I had told her some basic data about myself. The fact that I loved to write had been part of that data and she had given me a leather book to write whatever I wanted in.

I trailed my fingers over the smooth white pages and twirled the black pen Dr. Whitelaw had given me between my fingers. Black pen, black ink. I liked black ink. It was professional, dark and easy to see on most papers…

I pressed the pen down on the spotless paper and slowly wrote my name, carefully tracing every letter.

_Alexanne De Bellefeuille_

Looking outside again, I taped the pen against my lower lip. My ass was hurting from sitting on a thin metal window ledge but I pushed the pain in the back of my mind – I was becoming good at this – and observed the clouds. The fact that my wounded shoulder was pressed against the window wasn't immensely comfortable either but, somewhat, I didn't want to move.

_I'm a translator..._

It was meaningless to write such mundane things. I almost biffed the words before shaking my head and letting my gaze trail over the immensity of the sky again.

This cloud looked like a dragon head, this one like a clover. One looked like a lily flower, another like a knife…

A shiver shook me and I glanced back down at the book and the pen held in a now shaking hand.

"Are you okay?"

The voice made me shriek and fall off the window ledge. My ass met the hard floor and a painful shock went up my spine, leaving me gasping for air.

"Holy fucking shit!" I gasped as two hands pulled me on my feet. A whine escaped me at the pain in my back and I cursed my reaction.

"Sorry… How are you feeling?"

I turned my head and met bright blue eyes. Bright ocean blue eyes filled with concern and compassion. I lost myself in the eyes for a few seconds before I understood the question.

"As well as I can be." I answered cryptically and Steve – because, of course, it was Steve Rogers – frowned slightly.

"Which means?"

I snorted and – shrugging off his gentle hold on my shoulders – I turned to face him. "Listen. If you push, I'm going to spill out everything on my mind and unless you want to be the receiving end of whatever emotion I have contained, you'd better leave me alone. I've got nothing against you but I'm not exactly in such a great mood and I'm often… um… hard to deal with when I lose the small control I have over my emotions, okay?" I crouched momentarily to retrieve the leather book and the black pen, dropping them on the window ledge.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Steve asked and I shot him a thoughtful glance over my shoulder. Did I want to talk about it? Did I want to tell him what I had not told Dr. Whitelaw? Did I want to spill my insecurities to a man I barely knew?

I turned to face him and leaned against the window, the metal ledge digging uncomfortably in my lower back.

"I… No… Not really… I don't know…" I sighed deeply and rubbed a hand over my eyes. "It is so… complicated… My emotions…" I shut my mouth and shook my head, giving up.

Steve's gaze softened and he nodded before coming forward and leaning against the wall, not too far from me. Silent support. I appreciated it.

I closed my eyes and focused on his breathing, shutting everything else off.

* * *

_*French Translations_

_"Et moi qui croyait que la idiotie adolescente partait à l'âge adulte. Voilà une preuve que l'immaturité peut survivre le passage des années." - "And here I thought that teenage idiocy disappeared with adulthood. This is proof that immaturity can survive the passage of years."_

* * *

**Did you like it?**

**Comments are welcome, as always.**

**Stay tuned for next Saturday and thanks for sticking with me, dear readers!**


	6. Chapter 5: Ink and Bruises

**I know I'm a little late and I have no excuse for this.**

**I forgot. I simply forgot, as stupid as it may sound.**

**But well, here is chapter 5.**

**In which pens are unlucky and Alexanne may be slightly masochist.**

**Warnings for emotional distress that is not being properly dealt with.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 5: Ink and Bruises**

"Let's start with when you woke up. What do you remember?" asked the woman in front of me.

I currently was in Dr. Kelly Whitelaw's loaned office in the Avengers Tower, playing with a black pen. Because of Vanessa, actually.

We were staying longer than what I had thought because Ness – dear, stubborn Ness – had decided to have a long discussion – debate, in fact – with the Avengers and Director Fury on my psychological case. To summarize, she had basically told them that I needed to see a psychologist – something on which I was very much _not_ agreeing – and that SHIELD, with the jobs their agents did, had the best psychologists you could find. She had also pointed out that they had said they would take care of all our wounds and that psychological wounds existed. And that I visibly had some. She had also given a brief – but long anyway – list of examples on my lack of emotional control and my high sensitivity until Fury had finally bent to her demands.

So we were staying in New York for God knows how long because of my _"need"_ to see a professional…

"What do you remember?" Dr. Whitelaw asked again, patiently. "Write it down." she gestured the pen held tightly by my fingers.

I glanced up and met her brownish grey eyes. "Too much…" I muttered, my eyes falling back down to the leather book on my lap.

A dark room with a huge mirror-wall. My best friend still unconscious, lying on the stony floor of the dusty cell. Abrasions on my skin, leftovers of duct tape. Cold and feeling alone, so far from home.

"Good?" I nodded, a brief jerky movement of my head. "Can you write down how you felt at first?"

Lost; far from home. Alone; Vanessa is still out of reach. Uncomfortable; the cell is small, oppressing. Rising panic, deep worry. Fear. For myself, for Vanessa. Incomprehension. What did they want from us? Why? Emotions. Too many emotions, boiling under my skin…

CONTROL!

I whispered the word at the same time I wrote it down and I clenched my hand tightly around the pen. It suddenly snapped in two, covering my hand, my forearm, my t-shirt, my jeans and the leather book in jet black liquid. I looked down at the now-ruined white t-shirt, at the ink dripping onto my pants and seeping through the once-immaculate pages of the book.

"Wow. Good job, De Bellefeuille." I muttered before opening my hand, the broken pen falling to the floor, more ink dripping.

_Stupid._

Stupid, foolish, over-emotional woman. I gently dropped the book on Dr. Whitelaw's desk and, with a soft "Sorry" hissed through gritted teeth, I exited the office, running to the nearest elevator.

I punched the number of the Avengers' common floor and slumped against the metallic wall, choking on sobs and desperately trying to hold back the uprising tide of emotions. I slammed my left fist – the one not dripping ink _everywhere_ – against the wall, ignoring the throbbing protest of the still tender muscles of my healing shoulder. I hit the wall again. I tried to focus on the pain, to ground myself. Again.

"Miss De Bellefeuille, can I do something for you?" JARVIS' voice broke through my hazy thoughts and I closed my eyes, my forehead hitting the wall with a soft 'thud'.

"No. Sadly, there's nothing you can do, JARVIS. Thanks for asking, though."

The 'ding' of the elevator made me move away from the wall to enter the room. The tiny hope that I would be alone was crushed as soon as I met Clint's weirdly coloured eyes. Grey? Blue? Green? A mix of the three? Or maybe they were like mine. Grey-blue, but a few shades paler.

"What did you do?" he asked, eyes opened comically wide. I would have smiled, had I been in better spirits.

I shrugged. "Had a fight with a pen."

Clint's eyebrows went up. "Did it win?"

I shot him a small icy glare. "No. I snapped it in two. It made quite a mess." And to prove my point, I raised my ink splattered hand.

The archer's gaze travelled down the length of my arms. "And this?" He gestured my other hand and I frowned, raising it too.

Red.

"Oops." I trailed an ink-stained finger over my ripped knuckles, watching with fascination as the black mixed with the red. A rueful chuckle escaped me. "Why am I not even surprised that I managed to do that?" I whispered. "I make a mess of everything." I turned my hands, looked at my palms. "Even my own hands." I clenched them into fists again and, avoiding Clint's gaze, I went to the kitchen sink, opened the tap and putted my hands under the water. A good dollop of soap, rubbing until there was only a faint trace of ink on my hands. I also rubbed soap on my stained forearm until the skin began to turn pink from it. I turned around, looking for a towel… only to have one dangling in front of my face.

"Thanks." I muttered to the archer, drying the wet skin.

He crossed his arms and thoughtfully observed me. I met his gaze momentarily before breaking eye-contact almost immediately and turning away.

"Sorry for disturbing you." I muttered, not because I was really sorry but to break the silence.

Clint raised an eyebrow. "You didn't disturb me." He stretched and rolled his shoulders and I couldn't help but enviously follow the easy movement of strong muscles with my eyes. Maybe I should do some exercise. It would loosen the muscle in my shoulder…

"There's a gym in this tower, right?" I asked, looking up.

The archer snorted. "There are many things in the Tower." He shook his head and cracked a half-smile. "But yeah, there is a gym. Do you want to see it?"

I nodded. "Yeah. But I need to change clothes first. 'Cause these are ruined…"

*o*O*o*O*o*

Fifteen minutes and a change of clothes later, we were in the gym, warming ourselves up. I had asked Clint if he would like to spar against me and had had to chuckle at his obvious surprise.

"You know how to spar?" he had asked me.

"You're going to kick my ass, but yeah. Kind of." I had answered before looking away and focussing on my own body.

Sitting on one heel, the other leg extended in front of myself, I minutely wondered if I was not, in fact, really a masochist. Clint was wearing a black t-shirt clinging to his torso, rippling muscles visible through the thin cloth. The tight pants he wore hid none of the strength in those legs and I spared a small glance for my own tissue-clad legs, tensing and relaxing the muscles, comparing them to the archer's.

"You sure you want to spar?" he asked and I felt a spark of annoyance mix with the excitement and dread spreading through me.

I licked my lips and stood on the tip of my toes, stretching my arms as high as possible before shrugging. "Sure. I won't back off. And I'm not afraid of a few bruises…"

Clint raised an eyebrow at this and I got a sudden weird feeling in my gut. We barely knew each other but I knew the guy was a trained assassin. A professional. He would not only kick my ass. He would _kick my ass_. Literally. But was it pride, stubbornness or plain stupidity, I didn't back off and climbed on the ring with him.

"May I ask something?"

The archer rolled his shoulders. "Shoot."

"I have no gun." I pointed out flatly, not really teasing. "Why did _you_ accept to spar with me? I mean, I'm not going to be hard to send to the mattress. So why did you accept to spend time with a woman from Quebec who is emotionally unstable and "in need of psychological attention"? I mean…" I rubbed my forehead. "I don't know why I asked in the first place."

Clint was surprised. He gave me a long look, only speaking when I had begun to squirm under his piercing gaze. "I accepted because you are intriguing. And you look like you need it. And don't feel left out because of your differences. We're all a bit insane anyway." He crouched slightly and clapped his hands together. "Ready to have your ass kicked, Tiger?"

His tone was playful but I could not hold back the flinch. He raised an eyebrow but I shook my head and carefully closed my hands into fists. "Ready when you are, Hawk." I answered softly.

A glint in his eyes… And he suddenly was lunging for me, as swift as a bird of prey. Only a quick drop to the mattress prevented me from receiving a blow. I rolled, jumped on my feet, letting out something resembling a squeak when he kicked me in the legs. I fell, hard, onto the mattress. The world was spinning before my eyes. But adrenaline was pumping through my veins and I could already feel my heart beating in my temples.

"Are you–?"

"I'm okay!" I jumped on my feet again, grimacing slightly at the muscles shifting in my back. It would be killing me tomorrow. "I'm ready to go at it again." And I jumped forward, aiming for his chest… only to meet empty air and a sudden blow to the middle of my back. I met the mattress again with a faint noise escaping me. I kicked Clint's knee, felt it give under my feet and I heard the archer curse.

"So you play dirty." he pointed out, nimbly jumping back on his feet and delivering a sudden – and quite painful – blow to my right side as I got back up. The air was expulsed out of me and I let out a string of curses, bringing a leg up in an attempt to hit him in the face.

Bad idea. Clint caught my leg, holding me up by it. "Nice move." he commented. I did something stupid, but I guess it could be an idea if I wanted to get someone to release me. I used my other leg to kick him behind the knees, sending us both to the mattress, him falling on me heavily.

Ouch! My head hit the mattress and I definitely was done for today. Not such a great idea, in fact. If a cushioned ground almost knocked me out, a simple floor would give me a concussion.

"You okay?" Clint asked and I hummed faintly in answer. He stood and grabbed my arms, pulling me up. I staggered, dizzy, and was thankful for the strong arm he wrapped around my middle. "Lean against me… We're going to put some ice on your head…" I felt fingers sweep slowly through my hair, gently palpating my head until they caressed something that sent a throb of pain to my brain. My vision blacked out for a couple of seconds.

"I'm just dizzy but don't touch that!" I protested.

Clint guided me into an elevator and the ride was blissfully short before we were stepping in a brightly lit room.

The archer made me sit before leaving me alone with soft mutters about ice. I heard him rummage in the kitchen, heard another voice which made the holy bells of heaven ring joyfully in my head.

"What are you looking for, Barton?"

"Ice, Stark. Surely you have such a simple thing as ice in your fancy freezer?" Clint answered the voice – Tony.

"What do you need ice for, Barton?" I stood on wobbly legs and took carefully a couple of small steps toward the nearest wall before leaning gratefully against it and using it as an aid to walk to the kitchen.

The two men in the kitchen turned to look at me when I dragged myself to a chair… and missed it, falling on the floor, another throb making my vision black out again for another couple of seconds. "I'm done for today…" I muttered, finally managing to sit on the chair. How come such a simple task was suddenly so complicated?

A pack of ice was pressed in my hand and I brought it gratefully to the point of pain on my head. "Thanks." I sighed.

"Loch Ness won't be happy to see you got injured. Again." Tony commented and I gave him one of my best ice-melting glares. She didn't like the nickname. The less he could do was to stop using it! Did my best friend look like a lake, goddamn? Sure, she liked water but she wasn't _made of_ water. And if he wanted so much to call her Ness, he just had to say it without the 'Loch' in front…

I took a couple of deep breaths. "What Vanessa doesn't know doesn't matter to her." I muttered. "I did what I wanted to do and got slightly hurt in the process. So what? It's not like it's the first time it happens and I doubt it will be the last." I raised my eyes and met Tony's. "May I have a glass of water, please?"

The pounding in my head was slowly fading away and I lifted the ice pack to gently prod the swelling bump on my head. It sent a fresh wave of painful throbbing to my brain but otherwise… I met Clint's eyes. "Hey." He cocked his head slightly. "I'm alright. I'm not bleeding. I'm not rolling on the floor with foam coming out of my mouth or anything. I'm able to move normally. I'm still a bit dizzy and my head hurts but it'll pass with a glass of water and a Tylenol. No big deal. In fact, I'd like to spar again… not now but somewhere in the future."

The archer cracked a smile and shook his head. "You're crazy."

"Yep! That's me. That's like my… third name." I answered teasingly, before taking a sip from the glass of water that I had suddenly noticed.

Tony was leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his chest, blocking the glow of the arc reactor. "Still. Where is your guard dog? I thought Loch Ness -"

"Don't call her that." I cut him, levelling a sharp glare on him.

A smirk appeared on his lips. "I thought Loch Ness was keeping you under her constant watch."

I growled. "She's going to have me back under her constant watch soon. Knowing her, she's probably storming around trying to find me since Dr. Whitelaw probably told her that I fled the office after destroying a poor little black pen and ruining a pair of jeans and one of my brand new t-shirts. White, if I may add."

Tony's eyebrows went up. "Why did you destroy a poor little black pen?"

"That's none of your business." I gritted out.

The man narrowed his eyes, observing me, analysing me, and I childishly threw him the ice pack, which caught him straight in the middle of the face.

"Strike." I said, crossing my arms over my chest while Clint began to snicker.

Tony gently massaged his nose. "Ouch." He glared. "What was that for?"

"Baseball." I answered, rolling my eyes when he snorted. "No, seriously, I'm not a fascinating object you can study and try to dismantle, Stark. Don't try to look into my mind and understand me; it won't interest you." I explained through Clint's huffs of laugher. Tony took a chair and sat in front of me.

"And that was your reason for throwing me an ice pack?" the dark-haired man asked, a visible pout on his lips. "It _hurt_." I suddenly realised that he was _faking_ his offended face. That he was just… joking, making fun of me.

It surprisingly didn't annoy me as much as it should have.

I snorted. "You've got to be kidding me. Ironman got beaten by an icepack on his nose. Aw, poor little boy." I reached across the table and petted his hair. "Are we happy now? I'm sorry I hurt your precious perfect nose." I rolled the 'r' in 'perfect', liking the way Tony's expression morphed into shock.

He was actually gaping and I thought momentarily that I had pushed things too far… if I did not consider Clint's giggles. _Note to myself: Never tell Clint Barton that he is giggling. _Then, Tony pressed a hand over the arc reactor and looked at Clint.

"This is the respect she has for the marvelous Tony Stark! I'm wounded!" He tried puppy dog eyes on me and I let out a snort.

"Nope. Doesn't work with me. Nice try, though. You do look kind of cute." Okay. I was doomed. I had just called Tony Stark cute. To his face. Did I have an unconscious death wish or what?

"Kind of cute? What do you mean?"

I jumped at the sound of the new voice and turned around. Vanessa was standing just outside of the elevator, a look of pure disbelief on her face. "Cute? Did you got brainwashed or what? Since when this old piece of rags is cute?"

Clint fell off his chair, rolling on the floor and laughing his ass off. Tony gave him a kick. Which only made the archer laugh harder. A giggle escaped me, which I barely had the time to muffle behind my hand as Tony levelled a glare on Vanessa.

"You don't judge a man on how old he is."

"Even if it's you?" my best friend bit out, crossing her arms and looking at him with a calm I'm-not-taking-your-shit look on her face.

Tony looked torn between wanting to pout again or kick my friend's ass. He finally settled on an offended pout – a real one, this time – and none too gently kicked Clint again. "Damn it Barton, you're supposed to be on my side." he growled.

Clint climbed back onto his chair and swung his feet on the table, the shoes ending a bare five centimetres away from my hands. "They're putting you back to your place, Stark. I'm not helping you with this." He looked around the kitchen. "Is there popcorn?"

Huffing in slight annoyance at the obvious lack of disrespect, I curled my hands around Clint ankles and forced his feet back to the floor. "Tables are made for eating. Not putting your feet on it. Even if I guess that table saw much worse than food." I said, my voice sounding strangely calm and soft despite the lurking tidal wave that was always within me, waiting for a lack of emotional control.

Ness muttered "No details, thanks." and Tony smirked as she came forward and took a seat. She eyed me with rising suspicion before suddenly reaching out and pressing on a spot on my cheekbone. I let out a yelp at the sudden pain and she raised an eyebrow, giving me a glare.

"That's a bruise. How did you get it?" she asked coldly, her tone meaning that she didn't want to hear any lies.

"SparredatthegymwithClintbecauseIwantedtodosomeexercisegotafewbruisesintheprocessnothingtoworryabout." I debited quickly.

"What? Could you repeat that more clearly?"

I took a deep breath and met her glare with one of mine. "I wanted to do some exercise. Clint showed me the gym. I asked him to spar against me. I got a few bruises in the process. There is nothing to worry about." I repeated slowly, clearly.

Vanessa rolled her eyes. I saw Tony about to open his mouth and, fearing that he might tell Ness about the ice pack, I gave him a good kick in the shins.

"OW!"

Vanessa, Clint and I looked at the grimacing billionaire, who gently rubbed the point of contact. I forced my face to stay as blank as possible.

"Who kicked me and why?" Tony hissed, glaring at the three of us. His eyes lingered a bit longer on me and I did a quick movement. One finger over the throat before mouthing: _"Shut it!"_

Thankfully, he looked like he understood, even if he huffed and shook his head. Clint, who was glancing at me, didn't open his mouth. But Vanessa tensed and looked between the three of us. "What happened?"

"Nothing." I answered airily, swallowing a grimace when my best friend rolled her eyes.

"Sure. The three of you are hiding something, you just kicked Tony and there's nothing going on. Sure." The sarcasm was thick in her voice.

"Nothing happened beside what you already know." I growled angrily, annoyance rising. "I broke a pen and spilled ink everywhere about an hour and a half earlier. Is that what you are asking?"

"Alright! Don't tell me!" She looked as if she was chewing on other words but I did not comment on it.

None of us spoke again for God knows how long until Thor loudly arrived in the room, asking for food, followed by Natasha, Steve and Bruce.

* * *

**Did you like it?**

**Next chapter will be posted next Saturday, as usual.**


	7. Chapter 6: Fights

**Here is chapter 6!**

**In which fights happen... just not the big kind of fight.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Fights**

The cold air was nipping at my nose as I walked outside. For the beginning of March, I had to say that, while it was normal in Quebec to have such temperatures at this time of the year, I thought that it would be warmer in New York than in Montreal. Not that I was whining too much; the crisp air was doing wonders on my boiling mind, cooling it down for a while.

But I really should have thought about a hooded coat and some gloves.

Shivering slightly, I pressed my nose into the navy blue scarf wrapped around my neck and tried to push my hands deeper into my coat's pockets.

A little voice in the back of my mind whispered that I should have stayed at the Tower. But after a particularly heavy fight with Vanessa, the thought of stomping off to my bedroom and locking myself in seemed too childish to me. I had grabbed a coat and a pair of running shoes instead and had gone outside to breathe a bit of fresh air.

The fight with Ness had been about her growing irritation with my obstinacy to keep things to myself and, in my case, my growing annoyance with her over-protectiveness. I wasn't a teenager anymore and I believed that I was perfectly able to think by myself, make mistakes and take good decisions.

Thing is…

It wasn't the first fight.

In fact, in the last week, I had fought with Vanessa more than I could remember fighting with her in a whole month. She was worried, accusing me of not taking care of myself and was probably still a little shocked about the whole kidnapping ordeal too. I was growing restless, irritated and was taking care of myself, thank you. Regular visits at the gym had finally gotten rid of the pain in my shoulder and made me lose a bit of weight I was not even aware that I had taken. A new laptop had permitted me to go back to my job, even if I had to revise my Italian so that I wouldn't mix some words with the Spanish equivalents.

I was feeling a lot better.

This was why the accusations over the assumption that I was apparently not taking care of myself had blown a fuse or two.

I uselessly kicked a rock and watched it bounce down the street. This street was a small one and there weren't so much people. In fact… I didn't recognize the buildings.

I was lost.

"Holy…" I breathed deeply. "Okay, then. I'll take a taxi to go back home."

Home… I shook my head. What was I saying? Home was kilometers away. I would take a taxi to go back to the _Tower_.

A quick look to my watch informed me that I had been outside for approximately an hour and a half, which was probably why my ears felt as if they were about to freeze. I removed my hands from my now warm coat pockets and pressed them over my ears, gritting my teeth at the sudden twinge of pain it caused.

"Mraow."

I felt my irritation melt as I spotted the source of the noise. It was a pepper and salt colored cat with a crooked tail. It was looking at me curiously, bluish green eyes observing me attentively. The cold forgotten for a while, I crouched and rubbed two fingers together.

"Hey, cat. Come here."

It didn't move, only blinked lazily. I smirked and took a small step forward, still crouching, careful not to startle the feline. "Come." I called softly, taking another cautious step forward. The cat suddenly came to me, sniffing the offered hand carefully, as if looking for a hidden poison. When it looked satisfied with its inspection, I gently reached to pet its head.

It pressed its head against my palm in answer and I felt warmth bloom in my chest when it began to purr as I scratched its ears.

"Well, aren't you a pretty one." I murmured, trailing my fingers along its neck, smiling widely when it tried to follow the movement. I brought my hand back to scratching its ears and the cat seemed very content with this. It flopped down on its side and looked at me accusingly when I stopped my attentions for a few seconds to take another step forward and sit down.

The feline's purrs were soothing and I forgot the cold pavement under my ass, the cold wind blowing my hair in my face and the fact that my fingers felt a bit stiff. All that mattered was how calm I felt and the fact that I had missed the feel of a cat's fur under my fingers.

I loved cats. I had grown up with cats. And I had decided to adopt two or three cats at the SPCA once I would have bought a small house at the end of my university years.

The sudden vibration in my pocket and the melody of "Hakuna Matata" brought me back to reality and I fished out my cell from my pocket, looking mournfully at the cat's departing silhouette.

"Hakuna Matata" meant Vanessa.

With a sigh, I answered.

"Yes?"

"Alexanne De Bellefeuille, where the fuck are you?"

"Somewhere in New York City, why?" I answered while standing and waving an arm to interest a taxi. One saw me.

"Where?" Vanessa stressed the word and I frowned. What was her problem? I shook my head before entering the taxi and pressing a hand over the microphone. "Stark Tower." I told the taxi driver before comfortably settling back.

"Going back to the Tower." I answered Ness' previous question calmly. "I'm in a taxi right now."

"Have you checked your watch?" she bit out and I could feel the annoyance rising up again. I checked my watch. 12:33. Oops.

"Oops. Sorry." I had told however had been paying attention to me before going out that I would be back before lunch. Lunch was normally at 12:00, unless your name was Tony Stark… or Alexanne De Bellefeuille, I guess. "Listen, I'm just about thirty minutes late and I didn't see the time pass by."

"Alexanne! You've been gone for about two hours and a half! What were you doing?"

"Walking!" I said angrily, but keeping my voice low. No need to interest the driver to the stupid fight I was having with Ness… again. "Listen. I'll be at the Tower in maximum…" I looked outside, starting to recognize some buildings, "in max fifteen minutes. See you then." And I ended the call.

Jesus. What was wrong with us?

*o*O*o*O*o*

"Hey! What's for lunch? I'm starving." I walked into the kitchen, gently rubbing my cold ears to bring back some heat into them. I caught a whiff of something like… "Eggs?"

"Omelette." Steve answered, gesturing toward the two plates on the counter top. "One for Tony, one for you."

"You know what?" I grabbed some utensils before picking up the two plates. "I'll bring Tony his omelette. I'm curious to see his workshop." In fact, I wanted to avoid Vanessa's possible wrath and eat in peace before confronting her – again – about her over-protectiveness. I did not need to be monitored 24 hours a day, thank you very much.

Steve gave me a gentle smile. "Make sure he eats it, though. If he asks for what's in it, tell him that there is shredded cheddar, green pepper, mushrooms…"

I cut him with a small shake of head and a smirk. "I'll tell him there is no poison in his omelette. I think it shall suffice." I gave Steve a small nod and exited the kitchen feeling lighter. Apart from the uncomfortable situation between Nessa and me, my day was going quite well. I had slept well, the walk had been refreshing, petting the cat had been comforting and I had managed to talk with Steve without making a fool of myself.

I was whistling "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" when I entered Tony's workshop and the genius looked up from his blue screens with a frown. He turned toward me, the frown morphing into a smirk when he caught sight of the omelettes.

"Did Steve send you?" he asked. I gave him a plate and a fork and he eagerly began to eat. He let out a happy noise. "I have to say, Capsicle's cooking is great."

"Nope, Steve didn't send me. I offered my services." I answered, carefully pushing some papers and a StarkPad or two to clear a spot on the desk. I sat down, took a small bite of the omelette and let out an appreciative sigh. I was very hungry and the omelette was divine. "Hmm… True. That's really good." I took another bite.

We ate in silence, strangely comfortable together. Tony raised an amused eyebrow when I finished my omelette before him and silently watched me as I trailed a curious finger over the surface of one of the glowing screens, letting out a surprised noise – I did _not_ squeak – when it made the window displaying images of what looked like special arrows disappear.

"Sorry! Not touching anything else!" I said, crossing my arms and tucking my hands under my armpits. Tony chuckled and tapped twice on the screen. The arrows came back into view. Curiosity took over and I hesitantly reached out for another screen, tapping on a folder. It opened on a few written documents and I met Tony's brown eyes, silently asking for permission. He quickly scanned the screen before nodding.

"Go on. If you are interested by technique documents on the arc reactor that I have yet to find someone trustworthy and _competent_ to translate them in French, Italian, Russian…"

"I can." It came out before I could even think about it and Tony looked up at me, surprised. Embarrassed, I chewed on my lower lip before continuing. "I mean… ah, well. I'm a translator, see? And my first language is French and I'm not so bad in Italian… Becoming good, in Italian, come to think of it. I also know German and Spanish. I guess I could… uh… see what I can do." I spluttered, dragging a hand through my long dark hair.

"Japanese?"

I blinked. "Japanese, no. Sorry. Never was attracted by Asian languages, strangely enough. I want to learn Russian, though."

Tony's eyebrows went up. "Six languages?"

I shrugged. "Well… As long as I practice and remember that… uh… nuvola is cloud in Italian and that nube is cloud in Spanish, for example… And all those crazy grammar rules… I think I'm able to use correctly six languages. Maybe seven if I do learn Dutch."

Tony whistled and silently watched as I tapped twice on the first document. I did not really read what was written. I quickly scanned the page and corrected a few mistakes I found here and there, out of habit.

"Well… Since you offered so nicely…" Tony was smirking as I met his eyes. He gestured the screen. "Have fun translating it in as many languages as you want." He winked and I felt vaguely confused. "And feel free to ask if you want something in exchange."

I felt a smile tugging at the corner of my lips and I shook my head before I laughed softly. "Alright. I'll transfer this on my laptop and 'have fun', as you putted it so well." I corrected another small mistake. "Though, it's true. I became a translator because I like to play with words and languages." I stood and piled the two plates before giving Tony a smile. "See you later."

Now, I had to talk to Vanessa.

*o*O*o*O*o*

Pressed against a wall in the archery range – because there was really everything in this tower, even a huge archery range – I observed Clint as he shot arrow after arrow, hitting the center dead on each time.

The… discussion with Vanessa hadn't gone so well.

I rubbed a hand over my face before pushing a couple of long strands of hair from my face. It needed a trim…

"Goddamn." I breathed the cuss softly. Maybe I should have gone back outside but from the slightly painful throbbing in my ears, I figured that it would be better if I were to stay inside.

"_What's your problem, Alexanne?"_

"_I could ask the same thing to you, Vanessa. I don't need monitoring. In fact, I'm perfectly able to take care of myself." I hissed, crossing my arms over my chest._

_She crossed hers in a mimic of my posture and glared. "You avoid every appointment you have with Dr. Whitelaw and you pretend you are taking care of yourself?"_

_I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Vaness. Maybe I needed a psychologist after the whole kidnapping thing. But I don't anymore." She opened her mouth to say something else but I cut her. "Leave me the fuck alone about the fact that I'm still under shock and blah, blah, blah! I'm not the only one who was kidnapped, Vanessa! Maybe you should start thinking about taking care of _yourself_!" I bit out._

It had gone downhill from there. Vanessa was not agreeing with me; that was pretty much evident. I was stubborn and had stood my ground. I was… well maybe not "alright" but feeling better. Nightmares were rare and I rarely woke up screaming. In fact, I would often just open my eyes, take a look around the dark bedroom and kick the covers away. Then, I would take a couple of deep breaths to calm my frantic heartbeat and try to replay the nightmare in my head to push it into the _not-important things_ drawer in the back of my mind.

I was dealing with it. Without the help of a psychologist. So what? If I was okay on my own, why did Ness think that I still needed professional help? I didn't want to talk about it or write about it. In fact… I had not written something relaxing in a long time.

"Tiger. Alexanne."

I blinked, suddenly finding myself nose to nose with Clint Barton. I would have reeled back if not for the wall against my back.

"Can I help you?" I asked faintly before clearing my throat and meeting the archer's eyes. So close, his eyes were a pale grey with blue hues and a sparkle of green.

He smirked. "What are you doing? You look quite bored."

"Thinking. Musing over my life in the last weeks." I blurted out before I could think about it. _Oh blast!_ I thought, letting my head fall back against the wall. _So much for not talking about it, De Bellefeuille. _

Clint looked vaguely surprised – though, how could you tell with him? He was a trained assassin and surely pretty good at masking his emotions – but I shrugged. "Nothing important." I finished lamely.

The archer observed me a bit longer before stepping away and going back to the place where were stocked the necessary things for archery… before beckoning me.

"Come. Did you do archery before?"

"High school and only a little bit." I answered, obeying his silent gesture and wearily observing him while he studied a bow. "Why?"

He gently dropped a bow in my right hand, which I transferred into my left. "How is it?" Clint asked and I gently weighted the weapon.

"Maybe a bit too heavy." I answered, focusing on the weapon in my hand and pushing the lingering anger in the back of my mind.

The archer nodded, putted back the bow and gave me another one. "How about this one?"

I liked that one. Less heavy than the first and it fitted comfortably in my hand. I nodded and took a quiver of arrows before finding a target. As I notched the first arrow on the bowstring, I had a vague thought about my fight with Vanessa but I pushed it away to focus on the present moment.

Clint was attentively observing me and I shot him a glance. "What?" The word came out more aggressively than I had intended.

The man shook his head. "I was thinking about showing you how to shoot properly. Maybe another day. Now, you just need to focus on something simple but asking your full concentration."

If I translated it in my own words, Clint was telling me that I was thinking too much and needed to empty my mind for a while.

I could do that.

Pull. Aim. Focus. Release.

*o*O*o*O*o*

"You're avoiding Loch Ness."

I stopped eating, my fork about three centimeters away from my mouth, and I shot Tony something between a surprised glance and a glare.

"First, her name is Vanessa. Second, I'm not avoiding her. Third, if I hadn't come, you would have probably waited another couple of hours before eating something nutritive." I answered quickly, before eating the piece of lasagna on the fork.

"But you're avoiding her. While I know that I'm pretty cool and that my charm is irresistible," I rolled my eyes and snorted, "I don't see what could interest you in coming down to eat with me two times in the same day apart from trying to avoid someone. You and Lo-… and Vanessa," My glare prevented another Loch Ness, "have been fighting a lot in the last week. This is why I'm pretty sure that you're avoiding her."

Tony was looking at me quite intensely and I squirmed a bit, uncomfortable. Was avoiding my best friend?

Yes, I was.

"Oh fine, alright. Yes, I'm avoiding her. That's what you wanted to hear?" I bit out, irritated, my grip clenching around the fork. The metal bit in my palm but I knew it wouldn't leave a mark.

Tony raised an eyebrow and made a show of thoughtfully chewing his mouthful and swallowing it before answering me.

"Not really. Why?"

"Why what?" Okay, I was angry now. "Why am I fighting with her? Because we have different opinions on a subject." The genius looked about to ask something else but I shook my head. "Can't you just don't think about it? It's none of your business, Tony."

I noticed the slip too late… but my upcoming apology for using such a harsh tone – I was polite and did not usually let myself be very aggressive toward people unless they were falling on my nerves or unless they knew me enough to know that they were pushing buttons – was cut by a harsh cough. I swallowed and raised my arms, coughing for about a whole minute before I was able to take a sip of water. "Wrong pipe." I hissed, before focusing on finishing my lasagna.

If Tony had noticed the change in attitude, he did not seem to care about it. In fact, he only shook his head and silently – which worried me a little bit – focused back on his plate.

"Where do you come from, again?" he asked softly and I frowned.

"Quebec. Canada." He frowned and shook his head slowly before glancing at his blue screens. "What?" I asked, worry clear in my voice.

A feeling of dread settled in the bottom of my stomach. Did he think I was lying?

"Uh… Second thoughts are not good. I'm from Quebec, I swear." I took a deep breath. "Promis, juré. Je viens du Québec et je ne suis pas prête de l'oublier.*" I said in French. Tony did not look away from his screens but nodded briefly and pushed a StarkPad beside me. I looked down at it, confused. What the heck was wrong, now?

_Tell Poirier and De Bellefeuille that they are to meet me tomorrow, at my office, at 9 o'clock sharp. Tardiness won't be accepted._

_Nick Fury_

"WHAT?"

* * *

_*French Translations_

_"Promis, juré. Je viens du Québec et je ne suis pas prête de l'oublier."_ - _"I swear, I come from the Quebec and I'm not about to forget it."_

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**Oh-oh... There's trouble ahead... What does Fury want from Alexanne and Vanessa? Want to make a guess?**

**Hope you liked it!**


	8. Chapter 7: Sense of Belonging

**And here is chapter 7, people!**

**Warnings for: Angst, possible confusion (I tried to explain a complex concept that sounded clear in my head but isn't quite clear once written down), quite a lot of swearing and some OOC-ness (Sorry about that...)**

**Here are the answers to the "How the hell did all of this happen?".**

**Well, part of the answers, at least.**

**I hope you'll like it!**

* * *

**Chapter 7: Sense of Belonging**

I looked at myself in the mirror and gently pushed a forelock away from my eyes. It should do. The black pants, the white blouse with the black vest over it and my hair tied back in a ponytail. It looked professional enough without being uncomfortable. I did not know how I was supposed to dress, in fact, but I had the feeling that professional was far better than casual when you were meeting the Director of SHIELD.

"Lex? You're ready? We have to go."

"Coming, Ness."

Since yesterday, Vanessa and I were suddenly on better terms. The fact that I had suddenly appeared brandishing a StarkPad like a sword and spitting half-swears had made my best friend laugh. Until my explanations had sobered her up and almost made her as angry as me. I _hated_ to learn important things at the last minute!

I exited my room and couldn't help but feel incredibly uncomfortable. Something had to be wrong. Why the hell would the Director of SHIELD want to talk to us otherwise?

"Are you okay?" Vaness asked me.

"Physically, yes. Psychologically, I'm having an internal turmoil on what the heck is wrong for Director Fury to want to talk to us. I mean… The guy could only ship us back to Quebec if he wanted to. He doesn't _need_ to talk to us. In fact…" And now, there was a nagging in the back of my mind, something that told me _why_ he might want to talk to us…

Vanessa pulled me into the elevator with a hiss about not being late and I heard Tony wishing us good luck. I had to talk to him again, after the meeting. Because Tony Stark knew something that he hadn't told Vanessa or me. Something...

"You were saying?" my best friend prompted and I frowned before remembering that I was talking to her.

"I fear the worst, Ness. Something is going on… Okay, obvious, sorry. But… We both dreamt about meeting the Avengers before, didn't we? But they were in a movie! There were actors portraying them! They weren't real! That's the problem! Are we dreaming, are we hallucinating? Or… What was that blue thing, goddamn? Why do I have the feeling that something isn't quite right about the world around us?"

Vanessa groaned. "You think too much but…" She hesitated. "Yeah… Something weird is going on. I thought about it too, believe me, and I don't like it. Something feels… off."

"Apart from the fact that _magic_, of all things, exists?" I bit out. I think that was the thing I had the most difficulties to accept. Magic. Real fucking magic. No illusions.

Wait a second…

With a loud sigh, Vanessa pulled me into the sleek black car with tinted windows waiting for us. I spared a brief glance around, too brief to really appreciate the luxury of the car.

"Magic." I said, as if it explained everything. Well… it kind of did. "That blue portal-like thing was magic. Uncontrolled magic since it surely _wasn't_ supposed to teleport _us_ of all people into the Avengers Tower."

My best friend frowned and shook her head. "But why us, then? And why New York? Why the Avengers Tower? Why not… let's say the Eiffel Tower in Paris?" Confusion flickered across her face. "And how come the Avengers exist and aren't just… characters?"

I grumbled a few unrelated words and shrugged. "I don't know, Ness. If only I did, it would spare everybody a headache." I dragged a hand through my hair and extended my hand in front of me, opening it fully. "Let's recapitulate. Who?" I taped on my index. "You and me. When?" Middle finger.

"About three weeks ago." Vanessa supplied as I struggled to remember the date. Three weeks… It felt as if it had been three _months_ ago to me.

"Alright. That's when. What?" Ring finger. "A strange magical portal. Where?" Little finger. "From my apartment in Montreal to the Avengers Tower in New York City. Why?" Thumb.

That was what we didn't know. Why us? Why here? We knew the facts, but not the reason.

"Maybe that's why Fury wants to talk to us." Vanessa said. "Maybe he knows why."

_So does Tony, _I wanted to point out. But I didn't and kept my mouth shut. Tony hadn't told us anything even if he visibly loved to do a lot of things behind SHIELD's back when he judged that it could be useful to the Avengers and/or himself. And I considered that this particular piece of information was indeed useful and important.

But the whole question was if they – SHIELD, Fury, Tony – _knew_ why. Did they really? Or did they hope that _we_ knew?

I snorted softly at the last one. If only… Maybe things would be a lot clearer. I hadn't really thought about it before. We had been dropped in the Tower and had had a bit of time to explain who we were and what we knew about the Avengers. Then, there had been an attack, we had been kidnapped, had woken up in a small dusty cell. We had met Maniac – I barely suppressed a shiver. I hoped the guy was _dead_ – and been almost used as currency exchange for… a Teleportation Device, if I remembered well. We had been wounded – I resisted the brief urge to check the pink scar on my shoulder – and had been saved by the Avengers. After that had been the recovery time. I had focused on myself and on nothing else than myself.

It was only now that I thought about the oddity of the whole situation.

But the black car came to a stop – the seats were really comfortable, it was a pity to already exit the vehicle – and the chauffeur opened the door on my side. I checked my watch. 8:48. Good. We wouldn't be late… as long as someone directed us to the right office.

We entered the building.

*o*O*o*O*o*

At 9 o'clock sharp, Fury made us enter his office. I thanked the agent who had guided us with a polite sign of head and he answered in the same fashion before turning on his heels.

I suddenly felt a small flicker of panic at the idea that I could be charged for throwing Director Fury to the ground in the Helicarrier but I pushed that stupid thought away and stood as straight as I could, waiting for a sign from the man behind the desk. He was the kind of guy that was hard to miss, with his eye-patch and his good eye analyzing you as if it could see through you, as if he could read you like an open book. I swallowed, silently thanking the skies when he gestured the chairs with a wave of hand.

As soon as we sat, I dropped my hands flat on my thighs to keep the shaking at bay and to refrain from playing in my hair as I usually did whenever I was particularly nervous. Fury's good eye trailed from Vanessa – whose posture was so rigid that she was probably developing a nasty backache – to me and he scribbled something on the thick paper in front of him. That was professional paper and the black fountain pen had probably cost at least forty dollars from the look of it.

"Alexanne De Bellefeuille?" I swallowed and nodded slowly. Somewhat, Director Fury made my name sound as if it was the name of a criminal. Jeez, that guy freaked the hell out of me! His good eye trailed over me and I managed to make my voice work.

"That's my name. Sir." I added the last word, just to trail on the safe side.

"Vanessa Poirier?" And his good eye leaved me alone to observe my friend. She answered a soft "yes, sir" but, invisible to Fury's piercing gaze, her hands clenched into fists on her thighs.

"Those are your real names?" The way he said it ordered no lies. Ness and I exchanged a wary glance. What the heck? Part of my stress morphed into annoyance.

"With all due respect, sir, I believe I know the name I received at my birth." I said, keeping my voice soft and polite. Well, I tried to. Ness leveled a sharp glare on me and I bit the inside of my cheek, my own hands clenching into fists.

"What are the posts you occupy?" the Director asked sharply and confusion swept over me. What was he talking about? Our jobs?

"I'm a translator and an interpreter, sir. I'm currently studying Italian, finishing my BAC in English and French at the university and translating a book from French to English." I answered, swallowing thickly when he glared.

"That was not my question."

I exchanged a confused glance with Vanessa and she spoke up. "Then what do you mean? We are university students, sir."

Fury's glare turned to my best friend, giving me a small respite. "What I mean, miss Poirier, is that I don't understand why you both stubbornly keep on using a pseudo when I ask for your real names."

"What?" Oops. That came out before I could hold it back. Hello, single-eyed glare!

Director Fury suddenly pushed a tablet in front of us – a StarkPad, in fact – and growled menacingly.

"These names don't belong to any citizen living in Quebec in the last fifteen years."

Something heavy settled in my stomach as I urgently pulled the tablet nearer and opened a web page. I quickly typed the name of my personal site, where I published everything related to my job. My qualifications, what I had already translated, etc.

_This web page does not exist._

"Fucking shit." I muttered, briefly forgetting to watch my language. "What the fuck? We don't… _exist_?!" I furiously typed my full name on Google. Nothing. Nothing concerning me. Some girls that were called Alexanne, some people with the name De Bellefeuille… But no Alexanne De Bellefeuille.

Vanessa's eyes were wide. She snatched the pad from my hands and typed her own name. Pear trees images, some girls with the same name… But no Vanessa Poirier.

Vaness breathed a few cuss words in French and English before dropping the StarkPad on the desk. "It's impossible! We're not crazy!" She grabbed my hand and squeezed until I let out a sound of protest. "We're real! And alive! And not crazy!"

_My name is Alexanne De Bellefeuille. 24 years old, going on 25. Studying languages, from Quebec._

_I'm _real!_ I'm not amnesic. I'm not crazy,_ I told myself firmly.

The blue portal.

I met Fury's permanent glare with a pleading glaze. "Do you have any information on a blue thing that could be described as a portal?" I asked softly, voice breaking in the middle of my sentence. What the fuck was going on? Why the hell didn't we _exist_?

Fury's glare seemed to loose some of its intensity. "A portal? A blue portal?"

He took back the pad from Vanessa's shaking hands and putted it away, opening a drawer and pulling out a thick folder with the black stamp of SHIELD and a red SECRET stamp. The heavy feeling in my stomach increased and a lump formed in my throat. My hands, which were trembling slightly, seemed to transfer the shaking to my entire body.

Okay. That was panic.

I focused on breathing deeply – it would do me no good if I were to start hyperventilating – while the Director dug in the folder, scanned some papers, putted them back and took another folder out.

"We do have information on an experimental device that can apparently teleport people." said Fury. "It is described here as a swirling circle of untouchable energy colored with various shades of blue. But it is extremely unstable and seems to have no physical limits." He frowned and glared at the papers in his hands. "Excuse me, I need to make a call."

And he stood and went into an adjacent room. The audible click of a lock echoed in the office.

Vanessa was extremely pale. "Alexanne…" she breathed. "_It would be a shame to kill two innocent people for the sake of an experimental device, don't you think?_" The words – the Boss' words – sent a full body shiver through me as I remembered the pain. "They wanted a _Teleportation Device_, remember? That SHIELD has in its possession."

I nodded weakly. Those guys had wanted the thing that had brought us here in the first place. Jesus! As if things weren't already crazy enough!

"_Seems to have no physical limits…_" I repeated Fury's words. A crazy thought crossed my mind, but it suddenly seemed less crazy than it should have been. It seemed possible.

"Inter-dimension travelling." I whispered. What if it wasn't just an idea that I could use to write a fantasy or science-fiction book? What if it was indeed possible to cross the invisible line between two different worlds? And what if the blue portal was one of the ways to cross this line? But to my sceptical mind, it sounded outrageous.

"You're crazy." Vanessa muttered and while a part of my mind wholly agreed with her about the craziness of the whole notion, the other part just couldn't deny the glaring facts under my nose.

"Maybe I am. But you can't deny that it is possible! Magic exists here, Vanessa! Loki, the Avengers, Asgard, the Tesseract… But we don't. We don't exist here. We don't _belong_ here. We come from a dimension in which rare are the people who truly believe in magic, in which the Avengers are fiction, in which intelligent robots like JARVIS are but a dream, the dream that research will obtain the knowledge to assemble such robots one day."

Ness sighed but nodded, accepting the facts. Or at least, trying to accept them as they were. "Yeah, okay. This whole… _inter-dimension_ _travelling_ kind of makes sense." She was pensively looking at me, her tense back relaxing now that Fury was out of the room. "What do you think happened to Loki?" she asked out of the blue and I frowned, taken aback.

"I don't know. At the end of the movie, didn't Thor bring him back to Asgard so that he would face the justice of the All-Father?"

My best friend shrugged and whatever she might have said didn't come out as Fury came back into the room, his expression thunderous. I straightened abruptly, wincing when my back popped painfully. From the corner of my eye, I saw Vaness' posture go rigid again. The Director of SHIELD sat down.

"I just have been informed," And thunderous wasn't the right word to describe his expression, "that the Teleportation Device disappeared for a meager total of ten seconds on the 17th of February. Ten seconds, which is enough time for the device to teleport two girls from another dimension," I wanted to point out the fact that we were both 24 years old women, not _girls_, "and drop them in the Avengers Tower." Fury growled a few cuss words in a low voice, then breathed deeply. "While I cannot apologize for the doings of a highly unstable magical artifact which SHIELD's experts are still studying," His good eye traveled from me to Vanessa, "I promise that we will work on sending you back home as soon as possible."

Strangely enough, when he said home, the first image that came to my mind wasn't my cozy apartment in Montreal, but the tall Tower in New York City that housed a team of superheroes.

_The humans' capacity of adaptation, _I told myself. I had adapted to the fact that the Tower was the safe place where I could eat and sleep, thus becoming _home_ – or at least, a temporary one – in my mind.

At least, I believed so…

The meeting ended there. We exited Fury's office with soft "Thank you, sir" and, when we came out of the building, the sleek black car that had brought us there was waiting for us.

The ride to the Tower was silent.

*o*O*o*O*o*

Ness and I had split up with a soft "See you later" and I was now hesitating on what to do in front of the elevator in the empty common room. Did I want to do like my best friend and go lock myself in my room? Did I want to go blow off some steam at the gym? Or did I want to find a quiet spot to work on the translations for the documents on the arc reactor?

The elevator's doors opened suddenly… and I found myself face-to-face with Steve Rogers.

I quickly swept my eyes over his body before meeting his surprised gaze. He was wearing a sweat-drenched white t-shirt and sweatpants. A wet towel was swung over his shoulder. But what really struck me – apart from the fact that I had a sweaty Steve Rogers in front of me – were his red-rimmed eyes and the drying tear tracks on his flushed cheeks.

I must have been gaping because he blushed – and the way the red crawled up his neck was quite pretty – and exited the elevator, going past me with a muttered "Sorry". I stopped him with a hand on his arm – I tried to ignore the way the muscle tensed under my fingers – and I felt a sudden _need_ to help him.

"Steve, what's wrong?" I asked, my voice soft but sounding irritatingly loud in the empty common room.

The super soldier shrugged my hand off. "Nothing is wrong." he answered and anger seized me. I wasn't the most observant person on Earth but, hell, I wasn't blind!

"I never thought I would call Captain America a liar but you are _lying_." I quickly swept a thumb over his cheek. "Your eyes are red and your cheeks are still damp with salty water. Don't you dare tell me nothing is wrong! I hate it when people lie to me!" I snapped… then harshly bit down on my lip. _What the fuck, Lex? Who do you think you are?_ "Sorry…" I murmured. "That was out of line and is none of my business." I took a couple of steps back, sheepishly looking down. My thumb was damp. I wiped it on my jeans.

Steve let out a strange noise, something between a sob and a sigh, and I sharply looked up. Tears were welling up in his beautiful eyes and he turned his head when he saw that I was looking. I hesitantly reached out, loosely clasping one big hand in mine and gently pulling him toward the huge couch.

He sat down and clasped his hands together, back shaken by silent sobs. I felt bad for him.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked as softly as possible, sitting close but not too much. I didn't want him to feel more uncomfortable. He visibly thought – from the way he was trying to hide his face and his pain – that it was wrong to cry in front of someone else. At my question, he looked up and I felt a painful twinge in my chest at the _abandon_ shining in his blue eyes.

"I…" He hesitated and I reached out again, taking one of his hands in mine and brushing my thumb over his knuckles. "I feel… alone." He whispered the last word softly, as if he was making a confession. As much as I wanted to, I didn't press for more. I had to let him take it to his own pace. I was here to listen.

"All of my friends from the forties are either old or dead. I'm a man out of time, lost in this world of colorful pictures, loud sounds and bright lights. I feel alone, even if I'm not. I don't belong here but this is where I live now…"

_I don't belong here either, Steve. _But I didn't say it out loud. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders – the position was, in fact, quite uncomfortable – and tugged down gently.

"You look like you need a hug." I said simply when he looked at me with obvious surprise.

He accepted it. Pressed his face down in the crook of my neck and took the comfort I gave to him.

"You are a man out of time, yes." I thought my words carefully. "But you cannot dwell on the past. It will only bring you pain and a loss of emotional control, like today. I don't say that you must forget those that you lost. It would be a lack of respect to their memory." I gently trailed my fingers in his hair, massaging his scalp. _I'm doing this for a friend. I'm just offering comfort,_ I told myself. I swallowed and continued: "But you have new friends. People who want to see you happy, that want to help you, spend time with you, watch your back. You are a man out of time but there are people to help you to fit in. To teach you how everything works. You…" I hesitated. How to say that? "You belong here, now." Steve raised his head. His bright eyes met mine. "You don't belong somewhere when you don't have friends. When you feel constantly homesick. When you don't have a place not too far that you can call home."

"Home?" Steve echoed. "Are we talking about a safe place to live or about the place where everything feels right?"

I sighed. "Both, I guess."

We spent about another fifteen minutes on the couch before Steve stood. I tried to ignore the way I missed his warmth immediately. Instead, I answered his small smile with one of my own.

"Thank you." he whispered before turning away.

I swallowed and ducked my head, peering at his golden silhouette through my lashes. "You're welcome. And Steve…" He shot me a small look over his shoulder and I raised my head to meet his eyes. "I won't tell anybody."

He held my gaze and I did not miss the flash of gratitude in his eyes. He murmured "Thank you" again before hurrying to his room.

I curled up on the couch and thought about the expression "Sense of Belonging". What did it truly meant? Was what I had told Steve the real sense of "belonging"?

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**As always, comments are welcome.**

**And to all my new followers: Welcome and thanks for reading.**


	9. Chapter 8: Settling In

**Here is chapter 8!**

**In which we see an old "buddy".**

**You know the usual warning for the language. ;) And there might be OCC-ness again.**

**((Now, I'm sorry for the OOC-ness on Steve's part in the previous chapter. Somewhere in my head, it was possible, both from personal experience and because my muse obviously thought so. I'll leave it as it is, though, but I've updated the warnings in consideration. If you do remark OOC-ness that really does not fit with the story and/or the characters, please notice me so that I can update the warnings appropriately. Thanks for your understanding and for sticking with me.)) **

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**Chapter 8: Settling In**

I woke up early. The glowing numbers on the digital clock made me blink in utter confusion for a short moment.

_5:41_

Seriously?

What was I doing up at five forty in the morning? Sure, I had crashed in my bed pretty early last night – around ten, in fact – but I had been so tired! And I usually slept longer, no? I quickly made some maths in my head. Seven and a half hours of sleep. No. It was a usual number.

I huffed and turned my back to the clock, closing my eyes and chasing after my latest dreams in the hopes of going back to sleep. Tough luck. The dream hid in the dark corners of my subconscious and I could feel my mind kicking into high-drive.

Taken by a sudden urge to move – I would not sleep anymore, that was for sure – and do something useful, I dragged my lazy sleep-dazed body out of the warm bed. A long stretch had my back popping in all the good places and a happy moan escaped me.

I had taken a shower yesterday, so I was out of my room fifteen minutes later. Too lazy to put on some socks, I padded bare-footed to the elevator almost noiselessly. I had always prided myself on my light-footing and it was handy when I didn't want to wake someone – say Vanessa – who could be really cranky when woken up before nine.

I exited the elevator in the Avengers' common room and quickly went to the kitchen. I wanted to eat a little something, maybe take an early coffee, then work on…

Oh.

The rising sun was pouring bright light into the room and my eyes flickered to the coffee maker, then back to the window. The sky was clear, no clouds visible anywhere, and upon opening the window, I noticed that while cool, the air would be comfortable if I took a vest.

Maybe I could go outside for a little while…

Abandoning the idea of coffee for now, I grabbed the first fruit that fell under my hand – a green apple – and bit into it, a light grimace appearing on my face at the sour taste. I then hurried back to the elevator. I needed a pair of running shoes and a vest.

*o*O*o*O*o*

The air was colder than what I had expected. But after a quick run that left me gasping for breath – I had next to no endurance, seriously – I was positively warmed up. I dug my hands in the pockets of the grey sweat-shirt I wore and looked around, breathing in the smells of the already awake city of New York and looking around with sharp curiosity.

It was the first time I was actually taking the time to _look_. Not just walk with no precise purpose other than cool my mind. I was looking, observing, keeping in mind some visual references to use when I would go back to the Tower.

I entered a park and felt as if I had stepped into another world. It was… different. A shock of nature – kind of, if I did not consider the pavements and other signs of humanity – in the middle of a world of iron and cement.

Moved by a feeling of longing and quiet sadness, I stepped away from the path and walked to a tree, sitting down against it. I brought my knees up against my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs, shooting a thoughtful gaze around the park.

It looked like any other park. Like that park I often went to when I wanted to go outside, back in Montreal. Back at home.

Home.

It was so far, right now. Not only kilometers away. In another dimension. One I couldn't touch anymore because of that damn blue portal. Fury had promised he would send us back but he had told us that they couldn't control the thing.

My hope of ever seeing my apartment again was faint.

And how would Vanessa and I settle down, now? Apart from Tony who, I think, had gotten his hands on information he shouldn't know about, the Avengers had probably no clue that Ness and I didn't belong here. They didn't know that we couldn't go back to Quebec. They didn't know that the Tower was the only place that we could consider as _home_, right now.

Only Tony did.

And he hadn't told them. Nor had we.

Vanessa had been strangely silent since we had come back and I had been particularly antisocial. The Avengers knew that something had happened and that we had met with Fury, of course they did. They just didn't know _what_ exactly had happened.

And I wasn't about to tell them.

I must have nodded off because I was brought back to reality by hands on my shoulders gently shaking me awake.

"Hey."

I blinked my eyes open and met startling blue eyes, deep and beautiful. It was a guy. And to go well with his nice eyes, he had a nice face too. "Hey." I croaked back, letting a lazy smile appear on my lips.

A violent shudder chased the last traces of sleep away and I suddenly noticed that I was quite cold. My teeth began to chatter stupidly and I almost bit my own tongue.

I was outside. In March. With only a sweat-shirt, jeans and a pair of running shoes to protect me from the bite of the cold.

Memories of the unholy hour I had woken up to came back to me and I shook my head before looking back into the blue eyes… and finally recognizing who was crouching in front of me.

Steve.

"What…" I wanted to say more but another violent shiver made me tremble all over and my chattering teeth messed up every attempt at formulating an intelligent sentence.

His warm hands drifted down my arms and began to rub them vigorously. "Why are you outside so early and, of all things, sleeping in the middle of a park?" Steve asked. His hands left my arms and started rubbing circles into my stiff back, which I had unglued from the tree bark. I hissed in displeasure at the sharp sting of pain the contact caused but leaned into it. Warmth felt good. I blew lightly on my fingertips, hoping to bring back some colour in my white fingers. Not that they usually were very coloured – my skin rarely went passed the 'pale sun-kissed skin resulting in freckles' stage.

"I woke up incredibly early for my usual standards and was not able to go back to sleep. And the clear sky and bright sunshine were beckoning me outside. Guess I forgot that sleeping outside when it's kind of cold is not a good idea." I managed to explain between loud chatters of teeth. I checked my watch. "And really, I shouldn't be sick. I slept for max fifteen uncomfortable minutes."

I stood slowly, accepting Steve's hand, and stretched, wincing when a muscle shifted in my stiff back.

"Note to self: Trees do not make good backrests." I muttered, reaching behind me to press fingers into the middle of my back. _Ouch_. I echoed the thought involuntarily with a thin whine of discomfort.

"Do you need help with that?"

I blinked and I must not have been completely awake because I wasn't exactly sure of what he was asking.

_When in doubt, answer yes or no._

"Uh… yeah?"

I jumped a little when Steve reached around me – and _oh!_ His warmth was nice – to press gently into the sore muscles. I melted into him, absently letting out a noise that could be described as a purr. He chuckled at that, a deep chuckle that made his chest vibrate pleasantly under my cheek.

A couple walking down the path smiled at us and sudden warmth filled my cheeks at the picture we were giving. _We aren't… together… I mean… We aren't! You're wrong! Don't look at us as if we were… I mean… I would like to, but… Oh crap._

I shifted uneasily and Steve released me. I tried to stomp on the small part of myself that was whining at the lack of his arms around me. As soon as he took a few steps back, my teeth began to chatter stupidly again and I tried to keep my mouth shut, annoyed. "Come, we'll go back to the Tower. You're freezing." the super soldier said gently and I nodded once before forcing my stiff body into movement. A couple of jumps on the spot brought back some warmth into my thighs, followed closely by the painful pins and needles of circulation into the numb parts.

"Yeah, let's go. I need coffee." I muttered somewhat grumpily. "Don't run too fast though. I have next to no endurance and I won't be able to keep up." I added.

"You can work on that, you know." Steve said gently, allowing me to set the pace. I adopted a brisk one that allowed my legs to cover as much distance as they could when I was walking. I was really cold and my fingers were so stiff that closing my hands was painful.

I sighed loudly and shook my head. "I could work on that, but I'm a lazy girl. I don't like to run. To be truthful, if I have to do a sport, I prefer archery."

He laughed. A deep, very nice laugh. I stubbornly ignored the shot of _want_ that went through me. "I'm sure Clint will be happy to hear that. Archery is not exactly my kind of thing… Nor is it Tony's or Bruce's. And well, you can picture what would happen to a man-made bow in Thor's hands."

I grimaced. I wouldn't even _imagine_ allowing Thor to use a bow.

We passed by a coffee shop and I salivated when I caught the delicious smell of fresh coffee and… was I smelling cinnamon rolls?

My pace slowed and I curiously peered inside. Yes! Cinnamon rolls! Wonderful, freshly baked, still hot cinnamon rolls.

"Just give me a sec'…" I muttered to Steve before entering the coffee shop.

*o*O*o*O*o*

I was happily licking the sugar of my cinnamon roll off my fingers when Vanessa entered the kitchen, still in her pyjamas and her hair only looking as what could be described as a mess. I smiled briefly. She looked as if she belonged here. Looked as if she was settling in quite well. She blinked at me, taking in the fact that I was dressed, that I had just taken a visibly bought cup of coffee in my hand and that I was maybe a bit too cheerful for her tastes at… well, ten in the morning.

"Hey Nessie!" I called brightly, pushing a cinnamon roll toward her and pointing the coffee pot maker. "That's for you and if you want some coffee…"

She grimaced and muttered: "I'll take the cinnamon roll but you know what I think of coffee."

I nodded and smirked. "There's orange juice in the fridge."

The hand that had been itching toward the cinnamon roll stopped midway and Vanessa pulled it back and turned to the fridge. I snorted and she grumbled something back.

"You're the last one up, by the way." I told her. "Tony passed by to take a cup of coffee twenty minutes ago."

He had also blessed me for making coffee but that was a detail.

"Who cares whether I'm the last up or not?"

I raised my hands. "Hey, no need to get defensive, Ness! I was only commenting." She turned a tired look on me and I cocked my head. "You didn't sleep well, I gather?"

She rolled her eyes at that and shrugged. Okay… When Vanessa wasn't talkative, it was better to just let her be. I knew how to get a hint and I stood with a teasing smile. I was in a good mood – strange as it might be – and I decided to just let myself be. Anyway, the Avengers didn't judge me for being… well, me.

"Alright, then! While you're being all grumpy and eating your breakfast, I'll go to the gym." I walked to the elevator. "See you later!"

"I'm not grumpy!" Vanessa exclaimed as the elevator's doors closed. Yeah, sure, wasn't grumpy at all.

*o*O*o*O*o*

Gently rubbing the side of my head, I glared at the punching bag from where I was sitting on the floor. I had given it a hell of a good hit with my leg and it had hit me right back, sending me flying down on my ass about three feet backward.

"Now, that was a nasty one, you bugger." I muttered, standing on shaky legs. There was a smart pain in my leg and I stretched it, grimacing in pain until it popped. I gingerly touched the side of my head again; the sting in my temple reminded me too much of the sting of a cut. No blood though. Only pain because I was too caught up in my glorious move to remember the punching bag coming back. Which was really stupid since I was getting accustomed to go punch that same bag almost each day around the same hour.

I thought about it. Did that mean that I was settling in?

Glancing once again at the now-offending object, I sighed and dragged a hand through my forelocks. My forehead was all sweaty. I wiped my hand on my pants, trying to get rid of the wet feeling.

Well, no more punching for today.

I settled on doing some stretches while waiting for my heartbeat to come down from its high. Water could wait until I could breathe through my nose properly again.

"Hey, Tiger!"

"Holy shit!" I spun on one foot, surprised by the totally unexpected shout. Surprisingly, I didn't lose my footing and stayed upright after my crazy spin. Clint raised an eyebrow and I shrugged helplessly. It was easy to surprise me if you managed to sneak on me. And when I was taken unawares, I often became more aggressive than frightened. I just _hated_ to be taken by surprise!

"Don't you dare sneak up on me, freaking shit!" I snapped, breathing deeply. "I just… Don't do that. Serious."

The archer cocked his head and smirked. "I gave you quite a fright, eh?"

I bit my lip. Even if it was true, it stung anyway to have been so easily caught unawares. "Yeah. Didn't hear you come in. Anyway." I shrugged again. "What was the reason for you to sneak up on me? I hope you weren't aiming to give me a heart attack!"

"Uh, no. Not yet." At my eyes' widening, he snickered. "Oh, calm down, Tiger. I won't give you a heart attack. Cap is looking for you."

My eyebrows shot up in my hairline. Why did Steve want to see _me_? I repeated the question aloud, to which Hawkeye answered with a quick "Dunno".

Oh heck! I couldn't exactly say no, now could I?

"Alright. Show me the way."

*o*O*o*O*o*

SHIELD had captured a guy from the organisation trying to get the freaky portal-like teleportation device. And Steve wanted to know if Ness and I recognized him.

My answer was a quick 'hell, yes!' because I recognized the man indeed.

Maniac.

Who sneered at me and gave Vanessa a flirty smile when he saw us.

I backed off, too fast to look subtle about it. A glint of cruelty appeared in the guy's eyes.

"Well, well, well! Look who we've got here! My lovely princess and her tiger! Easy, easy, little kittypet!" he cooed mockingly when I shivered. "You remember me?"

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to look bored as my hands clenched into my biceps. "Hard to forget such an ass." I shot right back, putting as much disdain and attitude as I could behind it. Strong fiery emotions, such as anger, I could deal easier with than the now instinctive fear I harbored toward that dick.

"I would prefer not to!" Vanessa spat in answer.

One of the four agents of SHIELD present in the room asked if we knew Maniac's name, to which we both answered that we didn't.

"Unless his real name is Maniac, of course." I added softly, but not softly enough since everybody heard me anyway.

At that, the idiot laughed. His laughter was displeasing. Not only to hear but it was really falling on my nerves that he was acting so… freely even if he was in SHIELD's hands! Could he snap out of his craziness and take a look at _reality_? Vanessa didn't love him – I swear she did in fact _hate_ him – and he was far from having the upper hand right now.

Steve was standing beside Tony, who himself was slouching against the door. He glanced my way briefly, but didn't say anything. Tony, on the other hand…

"Maniac?"

I sighed. "He never listens to what he's told unless it's a direct order from his boss or just plainly doesn't care about it. And he's a maniac about weapons and _accidental_ touches on the trigger and is, I swear, completely nuts and blah, blah, blah. He's a fucking asshole, okay? And why am I even justifying myself when the problem in the room is him?"

Tony's lips quirked up momentarily at that and Ness glared at said 'problem'.

The agents of SHIELD nodded. "You may depart." one of them said. "Thank you."

With a quick – and hopefully polite – nod toward the agents, I marched straight to the door, stopping to shoot a look over my shoulder when Vanessa didn't follow me right away. She was glaring darkly at Maniac, who was smirking back arrogantly.

The resounding slap she gave him across the face didn't surprise me one bit. I smiled widely and congratulated my best friend instead, inviting her to follow me outside with a large exaggerated wave of my hand.

Tony winked as we passed by and muttered something along the lines of "he'll be numbing his ass for a good while, don't worry" before allowing the door to close behind us.

"I just wish he was dead!" Nessa suddenly snapped. "I just hit him! He only looked surprised for two seconds before looking at me with his creepy smile!"

I patted her back but she shied away from me. Ness never was too fond of contact and I guessed that now really wasn't the good moment. I subtly backed away a little bit, stepping out of her bubble's _large_ bounds.

"He's a really fucking creeper! They better lock him away!"

I nodded slowly. I felt the same way. That guy freaked me out. "I know, Vanessa. Trust me, I know." I breathed deeply. Then, a little spark of malice lit up in me as we took the direction of the closest elevator. "Oh, Nessie. If we ever have to see his ugly face again, next time…" I reached out to pat her shoulder, stopped midway when I remembered her anti-contact mood, and smirked instead.

"I hope we never have to see his face again." my best friend muttered venomously.

I snorted. "Me too, trust me. But if it ever happens… Next time, don't slap him. Close you fist and punch him. That might get a reaction."

Vanessa nodded grimly and I guessed that she regretted not having thought of it before we exited the room.

We entered the elevator and I punched the button for the main floor. "Let's go back…" _Home_ almost came out but I bit my tongue and said "to the Tower" instead.

I don't know if Ness noticed my slip…

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**As always, your comments are welcome.**


	10. Chapter 9: Friends

**Chapter 9!**

**More of a filler chapter than anything else, but it belongs there.**

**Fluffy warm chapter, with a little bit of angst and some grumpying on Alexanne's part.**

**Hope you'll like it!**

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**Chapter 9: Friends**

Bored, I trailed my fingers over the laptop's keyboard. I was in one of those moods that could only be described as… well, brooding. And brooding meant that leaving me alone was the best thing that someone could do.

Two more weeks had gone by, so fast yet so slow. Things had somewhat settled down and if Fury's short – and not very detailed – message was anything to go by, Ness and I weren't going home anytime soon.

Giving up the idea of trying to write something, I reached out for my coffee cup and took a cautious sip. It was barely warm anymore and I putted it down with a sigh, feeling far too lazy to get up from the couch and reheat it in the microwave.

Instead, I putted the laptop on the coffee table, closed my eyes and basked in the silence, emptying my mind slowly. For the first time in a long time – Weeks? Days? I wasn't sure – I was completely and utterly alone. And only the barely-there buzz of Tony's costly appliances was disturbing my practically silent environment.

Talking about Tony… I probably wouldn't see him for a while since he was in his workshop, as usual.

Bruce was in his lab, working on God knows what kind of chemistry mix. As long as there wasn't an explosion, I guess everything would be alright.

Clint and Natasha were in the gym, comparing their strengths and abilities and, unsurprisingly, sparring. They might come up before lunch but I doubted it.

Thor had gone back to Asgard for something that had to do with Loki. We wouldn't see him for a while.

As for Vanessa, she was locked in her bedroom, brooding about things I could only guess about since she didn't want to tell me what was on her mind. I didn't push, just accepted the facts as they were. She would avoid me anyway.

And Steve…

I opened my eyes and let out a deep weary sigh.

Now, I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit that I was dealing with a lot of feelings when it came to Steve Rogers. And I'm not talking about Captain America, the USA's perfect golden boy, the superhero a lot of girls secretly pictured as their charming prince. I'm talking about the man under the suit, the man with the forces and weaknesses, the man who – though physically enhanced by a super serum – was still human. For that man I felt such turmoil. And I held to that distinction fiercely, if only to prove myself that I wasn't having a fan girl's crush over the guy I dreamed about some nights.

And yet, I was slowly sinking in such dreams. More than once I had caught myself starring at muscled arms, plump pink lips or silky-looking golden hair. More than once I had to remind myself to focus on what Steve was saying instead of letting myself get lost in the blue depths of his bright eyes. The only thing missing was swooning.

"And here I am, poetically thinking like a fucking Disney princess!" I snapped aloud, disgusted with myself.

"A Disney princess?"

I let out a shriek and jumped on my feet, arms crossed protectively in front of my face. I didn't even relax when I recognised what I had thought previously as a threat.

"Anthony Stark, goddamn, don't sneak up on me! Jesus…" I growled, venomously muttering various curses under my breath until my heartbeat began to slow down. "What are you doing upstairs? It's not even lunchtime!" Inwardly, I cursed him to hell and back for disturbing my peace.

He raised his hands. "Hey, it's my Tower! I can be wherever I want whenever I want!" Tony protested.

My shoulders slumped and I let my arms fall by my sides limply. "True." I admitted, a bit of shame washing over me. "Doesn't explain what brought you out of your workshop at…" I glanced at my watch. "Eleven seventeen in the morning."

The man shrugged. "I've finished what I was doing. And I've missed breakfast."

I rolled my eyes and dropped on the couch, scooting to the left when Tony sat down beside me. I glanced suspiciously at him from under my eyelashes. What did he want from me?

"A Disney princess?"

I groaned and brought my knees up to hide my face. "Drop it. Forget I ever said that aloud, okay?"

Stark, damn him, smirked deviously. "Why should I when I have fun picturing you in Snow White's dress?"

Of all things! "Wipe that picture from your mind!" I snapped. "It's won't ever, ever, _ever_ happen, understood? Not even at Halloween." I added sourly.

Once again, Tony raised his hands in a peaceful gesture. "Whoa, calm down here, Tiger. It was a joke!"

For once, thankfully, I didn't flinch at the nickname. Maybe it came with the fact that Clint kept using it each time he deemed it appropriate for the situation… Which happened incredibly often.

Still, grumpily, I snorted. "A good joke is one that everybody thinks it funny." I muttered.

Tony gave me a mock pout. "Aw, come on Alexanne! You can't say it isn't at least a little funny?"

I grimaced. A dress in only the primary colors and a little bow in the hair had never seemed like a pretty thing to wear to me. "Not for me, thanks." I finally answered, scowling when Tony accentuated his pout, transforming it into a kicked puppy look. I was about to snap at him again, but a picture suddenly went through my mind and my face split in a wide grin instead. "Now… If _you_ were the one wearing the dress…"

He actually thought about it before shaking his head. "Nope. Not my colors."

I allowed myself to laugh a little, to which Tony smiled. "Ha! Gotcha!" he exclaimed, giving me a smug look when I raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Gotcha?" I repeated.

"I got you to wipe that grumpy look from your face, didn't I?"

I tried to fight down a smile, tried to keep a neutral expression. I failed miserably when, still looking awfully too smug for my liking, Tony mused aloud: "Now, I wonder how Clint would look in Cinderella's dress…"

I huffed, then giggled. "Awful."

Believe it or not, we actually wondered about all of us in disguised as various princesses until lunchtime.

*o*O*o*O*o*

In a total opposition to my mood this morning, I was now positively giddy, high on happiness and feeling so warm inside that the cool breeze was a welcomed caress on my flushed cheeks.

Clint smiled brightly and caught me before I lost feet, dizzy from vertigo, pure relief and utter happiness. I might have cared about how I looked with my pale face and my goofy smile if I hadn't been feeling so great.

"Whoa there, Tiger! Had I known that telling you that you were a friend would make you react like this, I would have waited until we were back inside the Tower!" Clint said, his strong hands on my shoulders steering me away from the building's edge.

The reminder of the danger sobered me up quickly and I was shaken by a slight shiver.

Clint had brought me up as an answer to my teasing about making nests on top of city buildings. But once at the top of the Tower, I had suffered a bout of vertigo that had driven all teasing thoughts from my mind. Clint, bless him, hadn't made fun of my sudden weakness, instead remarking aloud how tiny the people looked from so high.

Curiosity had gotten the better of me and I had cautiously approached the edge of the roof to peer down, grasping at Clint's arm none too gently when the world blurred at the edges of my vision.

Then, for a short moment, vertigo had left me as I had contemplated how small we, humans, were. How easily we could die for various reasons, by our own hand or as a result of something we could not control. How short our lives were when you thought of the immensity of the universe. I could understand a little bit why Gods would look down at us and consider us weak.

We weren't _weak_ but how fragile we were!

"Hey, are you okay Alexanne?" Clint had asked, breaking through my brooding thoughts.

I had blinked. So many people, minding their own business, living their own lives. Each day, most of them went to work or to school. At the end of each day, they went home or hoped that they could.

Home…

"Lex?"

"I just… suddenly feel so far from home." I had gestured the people down in the street. "They go home each day. And we… we might never go home. We're strangers here, you know?" I explained softly.

Clint had frowned. "We?"

I had allowed myself to give him a disbelieving look and had gently pointed out: "Yeah, we; Vanessa and I."

He had offered me a small sheepish smile… before his expression had morphed back into a frown. "Strangers? You feel like strangers?" At my shrug, Clint had grabbed my arm and squeezed. "Alexanne! You and Vanessa might not be part of the team", and ouch, that had stung more than I wanted to admit, "but you're our friends! Not strangers!"

I had felt a little flower of warmth bloom in my chest at the word "friends". Had I heard him right?

My dumbfounded silence had displeased him. "You know that you're welcomed here right?"

I had bitten my lip. "Fury has made us feel as if we are… well, burdens."

Clint had shaken his head. "Fury is Fury. Acts like a real bastard sometimes. Inexplicable events make him sweat. And the guy has such a temper!" He had shivered mockingly before squeezing my arm again. "You and Vanessa are our friends, Lex. And if Tony hasn't kicked you out yet, it's either because you're useful or because you're both welcomed here."

Relief and happiness had washed over me, so strongly that I had swayed under the onslaught. Which had caused vertigo to slam back into me, resulting in Clint's quick decision to steer me away from the edge of the Tower's roof.

Putting pressure on my shoulders, the archer forced me to sit down. He then crouched before me and ordered softly:

"Deep breaths."

I noticed my violent shivers, due to both vertigo and the cold seeping through my clothes. I took a couple of deep breaths in an attempt to get over the dizziness of heights, shaking my head, frustrated, when my teeth began to chatter together instead.

Clint pulled me up and removed the leather jacket he was wearing to drop it on my shoulders. I was about to open my mouth to protest – I was wearing a vest too! He didn't need to catch a cold for me, thank you! – but was cut shot by the clearly audible chatter of my teeth, which was becoming quite annoying.

"Let's go back inside." Clint proposed, having apparently forgotten – or acting as if he had – the reason why we had come up here in the first place.

"S-s-sure!" I managed to say, clenching my ghost-white hands in the hems of the leather jacket and trying to wrap myself as tight as possible in it. But the residual warmth was not enough to stop my cold shivers.

In fact, my teeth were still chattering together when we entered the common room. I stood awkwardly beside the elevator for a while, not sure about what to do. Clint had quickly disappeared with a muttered "Coming back", forgetting his jacket which I still held to tightly. I finally decided to at least clear the elevator, kicking off my shoes – I would pick them up later – and curling on myself into the cushions of the couch.

It took a while for my shivers to subside. But once they did, I was sufficiently comfortable and relaxed to nod off.

*o*O*o*O*o*

_Warm… Comfort… Comfy cozy cloud… Hmm… A little hungry though. Bah, later. Not important for now… Nose in cloth… Hmm… Thought the couch was made of leather… Pillow? No, smells weird… Like electricity and heavy summer days, right before a storm… Wait, what? We're not even in April yet!_

I sat up quickly, staring in utter incomprehension at the red cloth covering me. What…

Someone laughed and my head shot up. Vanessa gave me a teasing smile.

"Slept well?" she asked, leaning back in the armchair she was occupying.

"How long did I sleep?" I asked instead of answering. I grabbed the red cloth, understanding that it was, in fact, a cloak. And I only knew one Avenger who had such a cloak.

"Thor is here?"

Nessa nodded, staring at the Asgardian piece of clothing. "Yes, he is. Loki apparently managed to escape." I cocked my head as I listened absently to what she was saying. Something sounded… off, in my friend's voice. She was keeping her emotions bottled up and keeping her whole attitude and posture neutral.

I then understood _what_ she had said.

"Loki escaped?" I repeated. Vanessa nodded again and, wow, I had to give the God of Mischief some credit.

"Does Thor know where he's hiding?"

My best friend shook her head, hesitated. "He's on Earth but _where_ is the question." Then, apparently thinking that the subject was closed, Ness analysed me slowly. "You have a new jacket?"

I looked down. I still had Clint's jacket. Thank God, I had never seen rumpled leather. To my friend's question, I shook my head. "I wish." I loved leather but, hey, it did cost some money. "But this is Clint's."

"Clint's." Vanessa repeated and I felt a spark of annoyance, which I quickly swallowed down. "Why do you have Clint's leather jacket?"

I sighed. "Jeez, Nessie, why don't you just ask him?"

"I'm asking you."

I muttered a curse, then summarized what had happened after lunch, after she had gone back to her room to doodle. I omitted the brooding and the vertigo parts. But I told Vanessa what Clint had said about us being friends, about us being welcomed here.

Vanessa didn't say anything but I think that the way he posture relaxed slightly meant that she was as relieved as I was. I hadn't been the only one stressing over the fact that we would have to settle down. I hadn't been the only one seriously doubting that SHIELD could force the Teleportation Device to obey their will. And I hadn't been the only one feeling as if we were burdens for the Avengers.

I broke the silence that had settled between us. "Why do I have Thor's cloak?"

"You were shivering in your sleep. When Thor came in, he noticed it. He touched your hand and declared that you were freezing and that you were probably sick. He decided to let you borrow his cloak to keep you warm since, in his opinion, you were "_shaking like a little leaf caught in a strong wind_"."

Sick!? I had bad blood flow in my hands and feet – thus making them uncomfortably cold more often than not – but I wasn't sick! "I suffer the curse of cold hands and cold feet but I'm not sick." I said. As if to deny my claim, my nose began to itch and I sneezed once, twice, then a third time.

I scowled at Vanessa's snort. "You might have caught a cold."

"I might have not." I shot back.

"Am I interrupting something?" And wow, Clint had such timing!

"Nothing." Vanessa and I answered at the same time, exchanging a challenging look.

Clint looked at both of us. "You're sure you aren't sisters?"

Ness shook her head and I said: "Nope. We don't have the same parents." And I had to swallow down a lump at the thought of my family. Quickly, I pushed the thought away and qualified it as taboo thinking. It would only make me miserable and I couldn't – wouldn't – let such thoughts poison my life. It wasn't as if we were going home anytime soon, now were we?

Clint didn't notice my brief emotional struggle, instead shrugging. "Well, you sure act as if you were." Then, looking at me, he cocked his head. "Is that Thor's cloak?" the archer asked and my eyes fell on the piece of clothing I still held.

"Uh… yeah." I stood and let it pool on the couch before shrugging off the leather jacket and handing it to its owner. "And I believe that's yours. Thanks for sharing."

Clint shrugged. "No prob."

A booming voice took me by surprise. "Ah, Alexanne! I see that you are awake!"

I had to find a warning system to put on the guy before he traumatized someone.

"Hey Thor!" I answered with a smile, picking up the cloak and handing it to him. "Thank you for the blanket."

But instead of taking it back, Thor gently grasped my small hands in his huge ones. He frowned. "You still are very cold."

I opened my mouth to explain about bad blood flow and the fact that it was normal when Thor picked his cloak and draped it over my shoulders.

It was_ huge_! I felt as if I was drowning in heavy red fabric. And I was small enough that the hem was dragging on the floor. Vanessa began to giggle and I shot her a small glare. I probably looked ridiculous.

"Uh… Thor? It's a bit too big for me…"

The God smiled brightly. "It is true that you are short, my friend. But this will keep you warm and I do not need it at the present moment."

"But…"

I could not find any argument to convince him otherwise and I shut my mouth.

Clint patted my shoulder. "You're cute, Lexy! You look like a little girl trying on Daddy's coat."

I spluttered in indignation. "First, I'm not a little girl! Second, don't call me Lexy!"

A flash.

Tony – popping in from God knows where – was holding a camera and snickering. "You're trying to find a costume, Lex? Didn't know that Thunderess was your kind of disguise."

Vanessa's giggles became deep-throated laughter.

I groaned, pressing my face in my hands.

"Do not worry, Little Leaf. Though it is too big for you, my cloak suits you rather well." Thor tried to comfort me, before letting out a chuckle when I gave him my best kicked puppy look.

I couldn't hold back a small laugh either.

They're here to make you go crazy and make fun of you but give you help and comfort you in the difficult moments. That's what friends are for.

And heck, they could laugh if they wanted. It felt good to be surrounded by friends.

* * *

**Nice, eh?**

**Some fluff is always welcomed.**

**And so are your comments! (I really love those.) ;)**


	11. Chapter 10: Training

**Here is chapter 10!**

**In which there is - obviously - some training, staring and mooning and... well, maybe some people should check the back of their shirts for weird messages. ;)**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 10: Training**

I was waiting patiently, slowly fingering the synthetic fletching of an arrow. Sure, I could have done something better than playing with arrows and stretching alone in the gym like accompanying Vanessa, who was off to give a hand to a hard-pressed Pepper Potts after having finally snapped. She was bored, she wanted to work. Tony had referred her and had said that it might keep Miss Potts out of his hair for a while.

But, call it laziness if you want, I _didn't_ want to dig through piles of urgent papers, no matter how much I loved the material.

And if _I_ so desperately wanted to work, there were all those lovingly complex documents that Tony had given me to translate.

"_Instead,"_ I mused as I weighted the arrow delicately balanced on the tip of my fingers, _"I'm waiting for Clint so that he can teach me how to shoot properly. Who would have thought this? Alexanne De Bellefeuille, interested in another sport beside swimming."_

"You're waiting for someone?"

While I had been waiting for a voice to break through the silence, I wasn't ready for _this_ one.

I turned, closing my hand around the arrow once more. "Oh, Steve!" I smiled, tried to fight down the heat creeping in my cheeks. Not that I blushed a lot but still… "Yeah, I'm waiting for Clint. Did you see him?" I clasped my hands together behind my back, still holding the arrow lightly, and cocked my head.

Ten seconds passed and worry crept upon me. "Steve?"

He seemed to snap back to the present and blushed lightly, pink tinting his cheeks. It was really endearing. "Sorry. What did you say?"

I opened my mouth to repeat, then decided against it. "Are you okay?" I asked instead.

Steve smiled. "Yes, I am." he answered briefly before his eyes flickered down to the tape he was holding in his hands.

I tensed, wondering if he was lying.

"Hey! Careful with that, Tiger!"

Have I mentioned that Clint had such a _wonderful_ timing?

I slacked the grip I had on the arrow and let Clint pluck it from my fingers. "Sorry. I wasn't trying to break it." I mumbled, shooting a small glance toward Steve from under my lashes.

My mouth went dry.

Holy shit!

Those muscles rolling powerfully under his shirt as he wrapped tape around his hands and gave a testing punch to his personal reinforced bag made my mind run wild for a short moment.

"Lex, you're staring." Clint said with a grin, the hand waving in front of my face snapping out of my blown thoughts.

My answer was quick. "I wasn't staring, I was thinking." Which was partly true since I had indeed been thinking. What I had been thinking about… Well, that was none of Clint's business.

"Can you teach me?" I asked the archer, pointing the arrow he held. I was totally changing the subject but hey! I wasn't trying subtlety.

He smiled warmly. "Sure." I cocked my head when his smile morphed into a smirk. "Think you're for the challenge of having Hawkeye as your teacher, Tiger?"

I rolled my eyes and snorted. "Guess I won't know if I chicken out. I'm in, Hawk. I won't best you but I'll become good, just watch me!"

"Can't wait to see that." And if that wasn't a challenge… _Fine, Hawk. Teach me and we'll see how good I'll become_.

Clint looked pleased by my challenging glare. "That's one of the things I like about you and Vanessa. You got some spirit." He nodded slowly to himself, then smiled again. "Let's get you a good practice bow. I'll talk Tony into making one suited for you. It might not be the bow that makes the archer but it sure helps." He then patted my head, to which I scowled. "And you're a bit short for most of the bows we have here."

"Five foot two of body and one foot of temper. I'm not small!" Okay, I was. I still hated to be reminded of it. And the fact that I couldn't wear heels higher than three inches – unless I wanted to either twist an ankle or walk as graciously as a penguin – didn't help my short stature.

Clint laughed. "I like that one. 'One foot of temper'…" He smirked, then headed to where the Avengers kept the practice weapons. He didn't see the half-glare I focused on his back.

Steve did, though, if the snort of laughter coming from his side of the gym was anything to go by. I glanced his way… and swallowed thickly when I saw the way his thin white shirt clung to his sweaty back.

Holy crap, but I was so screwed!

A bow gently tapping the side of my head made me spin around and give Clint a dark look. "You can just hand it to me, you know!" I snapped, to which the archer merely raised an eyebrow.

"You were staring. Again."

I wanted to deny it, say that I was thinking _again_. Instead, I shrugged and accepted the truth as it was. I had been staring. "So what?" I grumbled, taking the bow and striding toward the targets.

Clint snorted but wisely didn't answer.

*o*O*o*O*o*

The practice had been both a success – for my point of view – and a source of endless frustration. Even if Clint had been incredibly patient, I think that two full hours of bow lessons and of rectifying my position _every time_ I aimed was enough for one day.

On his way out of the gymnasium, Clint had literally dumped me on Steve with a "Why don't you teach her how to pack a punch properly" and had left us gaping after him.

And that was why I was currently letting Steve wrap tape around my hands. I didn't like the feeling of the tape on the sensitive skin of my hands but if I focused on the way Steve was gently holding them, it wasn't _so_ bad.

It was quite nice, in fact.

"Is it necessary?" I asked anyway when Steve let my hands go. I opened and closed them into fists, wincing at the feeling of pulled skin. It _really_ was a weird sensation.

"It helps to protect your hands when you're not using gloves." Steve looked at me curiously. "You already used the punching bag before, didn't you?" At my short nod, he asked: "What did you use to protect your hands?"

I understood that my previous punching sessions had been made a lot more painful by my obliviousness. "Uh… Nothing? I ended up with bruised knuckles since there were no gloves and I hadn't thought about tape…" I absently rubbed said knuckles, searching for a phantom pain that wasn't there anymore since my knuckles had had time to heal since my last session with the punching bag.

Again – and I stomped mercilessly on the flicker of pleasure that lit up inside of me – Steve grasped my hands and peered at them intensely, palpating them through the tape. "You're resilient." He brushed my knuckles with his thumb, gently.

I licked my lips and tried – failed – to hide a small smirk. "Not really. They just had time to heal. Vanessa almost bit my head off the first time she saw my ripped knuckles."

Steve let out a soft amused snort, which I answered with a giggle.

I would have been happy to stay like this, but Steve suddenly noticed that he was still holding my hands and he released them before taking a step back. I let my arms fall limply by my sides and looked at him, holding back a pout and waiting for the next part.

"Tape should prevent ripped knuckles," Oh, we were still on the tape subject, "and it will force you to learn how to close your hand properly when you deliver a punch."

A little bit sceptic, I closed my hand into a fist and swung, hitting the bag solidly with my taped knuckles. It still hurt a little, but less than normally. With a slowly growing smile, I delivered another satisfying punch onto the bag, then another…

*o*O*o*O*o*

I don't know how much time I spent there, punching and kicking alternatively the bag in a pattern that could be described as some kind of dance. Steve had left me alone, apart from a few tips given here and there from time to time, and had returned to his own reinforced bag.

When I finally listened to the nerves' endings in my battered hands, I was sweating profusely, my throat felt like a desert and I was panting heavily, like a dog on a hot summer day. My muscles were hurting from overuse but damn, it felt good. I was warm, relaxed and quite satisfied with myself.

"You _know_ how to hit." Steve had commented sometime during my battle with the punching bag. I had had a few answers on the tip of my tongue but I had kept my mouth shut and taken the comment as a compliment.

"I'm going to hit the showers." As I said this, I had to restrain my imagination from running wild about how many interesting things could be done in the shower, an awful lot of them involving the sweaty muscled guy giving a hard time to the bag in front of him… And nope! Not going down that mind path.

"Don't forget to remove the tape!"

Well, I had kind of forgotten that…

*o*O*o*O*o*

"You're mooning."

Snapping out of my daydreaming, I shot Vanessa a heated glare. "Clint says I'm staring, you say I'm mooning… Next time, what will it be? I'm drooling?" I grumbled.

"Don't get cranky when I'm just telling you a fact." Ness said.

Snorting, I turned my attention back to the book I was supposed to read, taking a sip of my coffee. Now, since Vanessa didn't like coffee, it was maybe a little cruel of me to bring her to Starbucks for our little girl-time. We would have invited Natasha and Pepper to come with us but the former was nowhere to be found and the latter still had work to do.

As if she had read my thoughts, my best friend groused: "I don't understand how you can drink that."

Since it wasn't the first time she had wondered that – and since it wasn't a question – I didn't bother with yet another explanation as to why I loved coffee.

We sat in a companionable silence for a while, mindless of the time, both engrossed in our book. I was reading a thriller while Nessie was going through some fantasy novel. She was far more engrossed in her story than I was which was probably why I saw _him_ before she did.

Tall, pale, with perfectly coiffed raven black hair. He was wearing dark clothes against which contrasted a green and gold scarf. In his hand, he held an innocent-looking black umbrella with a gold handle. His gaze, apparently bored, swept distractedly over the buildings around but there was a light in those poison green irises that meant acute awareness.

"Holy shit!" I cried out, jumping on my feet and almost knocking my now empty coffee cup off the table.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Vanessa growled, glaring up at me. Her irritation morphed into confusion when she saw me putting the book into my bag and grabbing my coat in a visible hurry. She stood too. "Lex, what's wrong?"

"Hurry up, I just saw Loki!" I whispered urgently.

My best friend skeptically looked at me, her hand itching toward her own coat. "You're sure about that?"

I was already by the door by the time she finished her sentence. "Yes! Come on, Nessa! We'll lose him!" I bolted out.

Outside, I believed for a short moment that I had indeed lost him. Green caught my eye. I saw him calmly crossing the street and scurried after him, not waiting for Vanessa, who was following me anyway if the angry "Alexanne!" was anything to go by.

I don't know how long I actually followed Loki though the streets of New York after sending a quick text to Tony, who hadn't answered me yet. Once, the god glanced over his shoulder and I thought he had taken notice of Vanessa – who had fallen in step with me – and I but he never quickened his step.

"He acts like a tourist visiting the city…" I grumbled.

Vanessa snorted. "A god who tried to destroy New York City… You really think he would play the tourists?"

I shrugged. "How would I know?" Fishing my phone out of my pocket, I frowned at the lack of answer, then decided to send another message to Tony, who had maybe thought that I was bluffing in the first message (now why would I do that was a good question, but how could I know how that guy's mind worked?).

Ness' hand on my arm stopped me and she pointed toward the alley we had just passed. "He turned. Do we follow or…?"

"We've been following him for quite a while! We're not stopping now!" And I ventured into the alley, ignoring Ness' long-suffering sigh.

I stopped abruptly. Nothing. Loki had disappeared. We were alone in the alley.

"Shit." Vanessa was blinking but she nodded once when I breathed the cuss word. "Where has he gone to?"

"I saw him turn here!" Ness exclaimed in a low voice. "I'm sure I did!"

I believed her but I couldn't help but feel a stab of disappointment at losing the god's trace.

Well… Come to think of it… Maybe following a _god_ hadn't been my brightest idea. If he had noticed us, he could have killed us!

My cell vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out with a scowl. "Dammit, Stark! You decide to answer me _now_!?"

I was typing a short answer ("Too late, we lost him."), when Vanessa's shrill "Alexanne, watch out!" brought me back to the present moment. Instinct took over for a few seconds and I crouched, narrowly avoiding the golden stick that swished through the air over my head. Vanessa dropped to the ground to avoid the scepter as it swung toward her and we both raised frightful eye toward the owner of said scepter.

"Loki!" Ness cried out at the same time I muttered: "Crap!"

The Norse God's scepter shone green for a few seconds and I tried to duck again, only to find out that I couldn't move, as if my body was frozen from the inside. As a matter of fact, I felt heavy and dizzy, as if my body's temperature had either dropped or went up suddenly. I couldn't even blink!

"Do you really think that I wouldn't notice that you were following me, foolish Midgardians?" Loki asked in that smooth voice of his and really, how such an ice-cold god could have such a nice voice was beyond me.

My answer would have been something along the lines of "Of course not!" but my tongue didn't answer my brain's orders. It felt thick and weird, as if it didn't belonged to me anymore.

"You know the Avengers?"

And suddenly, I could use my mouth again. My fingers – and the rest of my body for that matter – were still stiff and unresponsive, though. It was both incredibly annoying and frustratingly uncomfortable.

I didn't know what to answer that wouldn't end up in injuries. Vanessa opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, looking unsure.

"Answer me." Although soft, his voice carried a hint of steel. "I heard you mention Stark's name. Do you know him personally?"

From the corner of my eye, I met my best friend's gaze. She mouthed "No" and I croaked out the same answer, deciding that lying might work.

Okay, who was I kidding? This was the god of Lies and Mischief… He could probably smell lies a mile ahead.

I winced when, far from looking satisfied with my answer, Loki crouched before me and tapped my temple with ice-cold fingers. "Don't lie, little mortal." He then turned his gaze on Vanessa. "Do you know the Avengers personally?" As he asked the question, his freezing touch skidded to my throat and he pressed lightly there. Terror slammed into me, dizzying and I let out a gasp.

_Not there. Not my throat, you bastard, I hate feeling even more vulnerable!_

"Leave her alone!" Ness snapped. Not impressed the slightest, Loki only pressed a bit more, this time causing a small pain. There must have been something showing in my eyes because Vanessa let out a soft "Yes… We do…" filled with a mix of anger, disappointment and fear.

Loki smirked and released my neck, stepping away from me. "Your stupidity has just made my day, then! For you might be useful tools."

"Tools?" I choked out before I could think of holding my tongue.

The god turned his green eyes on me and offered me a dangerous smile, one that made me internally shiver.

"Tools of my revenge, ignorant Midgardian." Jeez, were we only stupid _Midgardians_ to him?

Loki pointed his scepter on Vanessa and traced something in the air before murmuring something that sounded like a spell from '_Harry Potter_' in a foreign language.

When Vanessa glowed silver and disappeared, I let out a scream of anguish. The Norse God rolled his eyes and did the same thing on me.

A tingle went through me, the world swam before my eyes and everything became a dizzying blur. Then, it went backward. The blur cleared into discernible objects and the tingle faded away.

"You okay?" Vanessa's voice reached my ears and I nodded immediately.

"Yeah. Just a little dizzy. I guess I had forgotten what teleportation feels like."

"Yep. And we're stuck _again_." Ness muttered grimly.

I shot a look around and groaned. "Oh, bloody fucking hell!"

We had been kidnapped. Again. And were kept prisoner in a cell. _Again_.

Jesus Christ, did we have a 'kidnap us, please!" sign taped on the back or what?

* * *

**So yes, those two managed to get in trouble again.**

**As to how they will get out of said trouble...**

**Well, that's in the next chapter! **

**Until then... :)**


End file.
